Genesis Help

[mariocaseman]

I am playing my sega Genesis and Sega Master system consoles on my tv, but for some reason they are both displaying the same problem:  Borders!!!  Very annoying.  The screen is surrounded by a border that covers all 4 section of the tv.  Anybody know how to fix this?  My screen options on the tv are cinema, full screen, side bar, and wide.  None of them remove these awful borders.  Any thoughts?

[djshok]

I assume you're playing on an HDTV?  That's normal, Sega games had a little border of blank pixels around the screen to compensate for TV overscan.  With oldschool tube tvs you'd always lose a few pixels around the edges, thus most games included this border to compensate for that and prevent you from losing a valuable part of the game screen like the HUD. 

[mariocaseman]

Yes, HDTV.  But my NES, SNES, N64 look fine.  Can I fix this problem?

[djshok]

As far as I know only Sega did that because the Genesis had a slightly higher resolution than the NES and SNES.  Genesis games are typically 320x224 vs SNES 256x224 thought much of those extra pixels are that border.  I don't think there's really any way to "fix" this issue since it's not something that's actually wrong, it's just the way the games were programmed to ensure the best display on TVs in their time.  I guess it wasn't a big enough issue so Nintendo never bothered with it, though I suppose Sega was trying to play it safe.  The only thing I can suggest is set your TV's display ratio to 4:3 instead of the default 16:9 that HDTVs use.  It'll make the old school games look better and make that border less noticeable. 

[mariocaseman]

I've been trying to find that setting to change the display!  I swear I cannot find it!  Is it possible some HDTV's don't have that option?
Also, when playing Sonic the Hedgehog, I get the borders in Green Hill Zone, Marble Zone, the 3rd zone, but NOT in Labyrinth and Star light zone... wtf is up with that? 

[dudeboy]

Look for format, p. size, or p. mode.

[mariocaseman]

If I press the "setup" button on my remote, I get these options:
Picture
 - Picture Mode
 - Brightness
 - Contrast
 - Color
 - Tint
 - Sharpness
 - Color Temperature

Sound
 - Sound Mode
 - Equalizer
 - TV Speakers

Channel
 - Autoscan
 - Channel List
 - Manual Register
 - Antenna

Detail
 - Closed Caption
 - Child Lock
 - PC Settings
 - Energy Saving Mode
 - Location
 - Current Software Info

If I press the "screen mode" button on my remote, I get these options:
Full
Zoom
Cinema
Expand

I see nothing that could change the screen size ratio

[djshok]

Do you have the manual for your TV?  Or perhaps can you look it up on the manufacturer's website? 

As for some of the zones having that border and others not.  Yeah that's normal, I'm not sure for the reason, I think for some zones they just let the stage spill over into the border area, maybe it has something to do with how much memory the zone backgrounds take up ie: the ones that take up a lot get a blank border while the smaller ones get to spill over.  Either way, it's normal so don't worry that something is broken. 

[mariocaseman]

I'm playing Sonic 3 right now... no problem at all.  Very annoying on Sonic 1, 2 and Sonic CD.

[zakurowrath]

If I press the "screen mode" button on my remote, I get these options:
Full
Zoom
Cinema
Expand

I see nothing that could change the screen size ratio

That screen mode may change something on your TV.  Full may be the full image untouched, Zoom could take alot off the picture, cinema may letterbox the picture, Expand that may fit it to the 16:9 screen. It would help to have the model number of your TV so I could look at the manual and see if there's anything at all that would fix it. If your in the PAL region then your overscan is much larger than the NTSC counterparts.

If not the only other way to get rid of the bars is to get a RGB video scalier and those start costing money real quick. The picture is truly stunning thou and well worth it in the long run.

[djshok]

I know some later games ie: Sonic 3, S&K and the Vectorman games had much less overscan border area.  Not sure what the reason for that was.  Probably some advancement in the development of cartridges, or maybe they just changed their policy on the distance between screen border and HUD display.  I really can only guess...

In any case, what's in the Picture Mode sub menu on your TV?

[Brandonh1091]

Around 4 years ago I bought a modded Genesis 1 model with S-Video output. I get the same bar, usually on the right hand side of my television. The picture looks amazing so I usually forget it's even there after awhile, but I still can't help dying a little inside every time I see it, lol. 

[mariocaseman]

Wow, so even if I get the S-video mod I'm screwed?

[zakurowrath]

Wow, so even if I get the S-video mod I'm screwed?

Yep, it's the same video from the same chip just a step up in quality each time.

[mariocaseman]

Ok guys, I am now using this setup:  Genesis model 2 with 32X and Sega CD model 2.  If I want better video quality, which of the 3 parts do I need to have modified?  All 3, or just the 32X since that is where the video cord comes out of?