This comparison really shows the advantages of the YM2612

It sounds much more organic on the Genesis, the SNES displays its characteristic muffled and stilted sound and restricted sample space. I like game music on both platforms and while the SNES made a huge impression at the time due to the novelty of sample based music in console games, its sound has aged badly in many ways.

Oooh a Genesis vs SNES thread. Now I can relate :-)

In all seriousness, both consoles were phenomenal, but yeah - I love the sound on Genesis games.

Yeah, the Megadrive has a badass sound chip.

Check this guy out (awesome analog music stuff).

Those graphics suck. Nothing like PS5's premium experience. Not even a lick of HDR. How am I going to impress Betsy to dance with me after bingo night? What a dame!

Yea I agree, where is the haptic feedback and adaptive triggers in all of this?

I want to feel the game with no load times. PS5 made me baked beans last night and warmed up my bath. SNES is just a cold woman who just when you are enjoying yourself makes you take out the trash. I hate you Beth.

I still have my Genesis and Hyperstone Heist. One of my favorites.

Yeah, definitely appreciate the clarity and "crunch" that the Genesis provides for a lot of game types. Much more well suited for a lot of arcade titles.

Overall, just a tossup for me. Both systems have so many killer tracks that wouldn't translate well to the other.

Sega does what Nintendon't.

Sega will ALWAYS be better than Nintendo.

Except at making money, staying in the console business and making games.

@sheevpalpamemes: Shouldn't you be doing another one of those nothing threads that you do on this alt account of yours?

But hey at least Nintendo beat Sony when it comes to video games as you have to play their games on a gaming device, whereas with Sony's they're best watched on YouTube 🤣🤣🤣

Nintendo is a formidable opponent that pushes sony to be better. Sony is better and ps5 is premium entertainment. Maybe you should buy some Sega stock.

I pray one day you'll be able to play a decent exclusive on xbox.

@sheevpalpamemes: That's it? Nothing witty or factual, man you're slipping already with this alt.

Time to start another one 😎

The problem with SNES is it has to use pre-recorded sound and because of that, it had to limit the sampling rate in order for the audio to fit on the limited space of the cartridge. Sega was ingenious with the implementation of the YM2612, and later YM3438, either one paired with the PSG chip used in the Sega Master System. This allowed music to be generated in real time, and allowed much more depth and clarity in the audio. And allowing both chips to work simultaneously could produce a rather broad range of sounds.

Much of the Sega Genesis was a cool console. Not just that but it's the first console to also have online services, and downloadable content with the Sega Channel, and also the first one that I know of to have a combination handheld/TV console with the Sega Nomad, which was a handheld that could play full console games, and be connected to a television to play at home (like the Switch).

It is no surprise to me that Sega essentially created online gaming in the 90s with the Dreamcast having a built in modem.

Also, those of you talking about triggers on controllers.. it's another Sega innovation first seen on the Saturn 3D controller, which lead to the development of the Dreamcast controller which was the basis of the Duke controller for OG Xbox which was slimmed down into the controller S which the entire modern line of Xbox controllers is based on.

It's too bad the Saturn killed them. They could have done some great things if they were able to stay in the game. Likely, had they, they'd have continued a close relationship with Microsoft and they'd still be filling the niche currently filled by Xbox.

@pyro1245: That's pretty awesome!

Sega Genesis audio can sound even better with some mods that fix some of the consoles issues with mixing with the PSG and cleans up the output. I was going to do one such audio mod, or a triple bypass mod on my model 2 Genesis, but my Model 2 Genesis is in such pristine condition, looking brand new without a single scratch or scuff anywhere to be seen, It's hard for me to want to make any kind of serious modifications to it.

I was considering buying a motherboard of a model 2, possibly even a VA2 with the YM2612, or even a model 3 VA1 (the smallest Genesis motherboard) and do a long list of modifications to it. Triple bypass mod to greatly improve audio and video clarity, possibly some kind of built in conversion to ypbpr (component) or line doubler to HDMI output, internal Bluetooth for wireless connectivity with Retrobit Bluetooth Genesis controllers, and I was even considering replacing the cartridge reader, or fabricate a right angle cartridge adapter for the PCB of a flash cart installed internally inside a new shell. If I do that last mod, then I'd 3D print a new shell, and add to it a pause button for compatibility with Master System titles.

@i_p_daily: 20501 post, 20000 of those being "watch them on youtube" comments and your asking somebody else for more witty post? Lol.

He wishes he was sniper level troll, but he's not.

While there are some good soundtracks in some Genesis games I generally much preferred the soundtracks from SNES games.

@vfighter: 7879 posts, and 7878 (im giving the benefit of the doubt on just one of them) of them whinging about others posts.

You need to find something to talk about, i know since you call yourself vfighter, maybe you should talk about Virtua Fighter for once in your life 😂

@sheevpalpamemes: Why would i wish to less of a person, man you alts grow dumber with each alt, its truly amazing 😆😆😆

@Archangel3371: Sega is better, you know it in your heart of hearts man, don't make me go all protoss on your arse 🤣🤣🤣

@i_p_daily: Oh dear god! Not that! I beg for your forgiveness. 😅

@Archangel3371: 🤣🤣🤣

@eoten: do you know if a capacitor replacement is the (only?) fix for hissing out of the stereo jack on the MKI systems? I love the sound that comes out of it vs the RCA mono, but i do have the hiss. It's not terrible - the gain on the actual audio is way higher, but it's still annoying.

That's cool and all, but I find the Sega synth way too limited in the types of sounds it was able to produce.

Something like Shadowrun on Genesis was a great example of the type of game that kinda benefitted the synth feel.

Street fighter? Or the sound track from some of the phantasy start games? Not so much.

@xantufrog: Have you tried different AC adapters? Maybe your console is getting inconsistent power, could be the cause of some audio issues.

@appariti0n: Really? I thought SF2 on Genesis sounded much closer to the arcade. For RPGs, Shining Force II and Wonder Boy in Monster World had good OSTs.

@girlusocrazy: I guess it depends on musical tastes. For my part, I've never been a fan of synthesizers, I just find them kind of grating.

In this case tho, I do actually prefer the genesis TMNT, tho I'm not 100% sure why. I think its because the drums sound much stronger in it.

Not what I remember. The sound on SF2 SCE for Megadrive was shit compared to SF2 on SNES. The characters on SCE sounded like they all had a terrible cold.

@pelvist: Oh yeah, when it comes to digitized voices, the genesis just couldn't compare for sure.

Some of the best soundtracks ever came from snes games imo, in fact, im practicing "to far away times" from chrono trigger right now on keyboard lol.

@pelvist: Maybe the voice samples but I'm talking about the music

@girlusocrazy: I haven't. It's only through the stereo out, though - The sound is fantastic through the RCA. Just mono. I'm wondering if it's the volume slider itself or something

@xantufrog: Ah. I get it through my 32X and it sounds good

Man, this music takes me back! Good times!

It's also worth noting that the Mega Drive's Yamaha YM2612 sound chip has some impressive PCM sampling capabilities, which commercial Mega Drive games rarely pushed. The homebrew scene has done some impressive stuff with it. For example, this Sonic homebrew demo uses multiple PCM channels, with generally higher sample quality than commercial SNES games:

Speaking of Sony, they made the SNES sound chip. That's how Sony entered the game industry in the first place.

It really depends, there are a few things that can cause audio issues. The jack itself, the internal cable that connects between the motherboard and the little headphone jack board, capacitors, it can even be the power jack. But, if the console has never had the capacitors replaced, you should do that anyway because if those start leaking, the fluid is corrosive and can cause permanent damage to the motherboard. So if they've never replaced, I'd do that anyway, and if that doesn't fix the audio, then I would look at the power jack and the headphone jack itself.

Yeah, SEGA sounds better. Way better. I get much more nostalgia from the worse SNES sounds though. :P

Oh, so Sony have sucked ever since the begninning. I never knew.

While I often prefer SNES, sound effects are better overall ( Street Fighter 2 comes to mind ) and the music in Donkey Kong Country, Final Fantasy etc. I really like the Genesis/Mega Drive sound as well, it's a different style. The Sonic games have awesome music and Mega Man Generations (remakes of Mega Man 1,2 and 3) probably wouldn't have sounded as good on the SNES, that kind of music suits the Genesis/Mega Drive better.

I think the difference is that the Sega Genesis does produce much clearer sounds with much more depth and detail, because it's not pre-recorded and so it's not constrained by the capacity of the cartridge, while the SNES produces more accurate sounds because it's pre-recorded audio, which is why sound effects tend to sound better on SNES.

I own both the SNES & Genesis and to be frank, I really didn't care about the sound at all between the two, I just care about the games in general, but then again, I was a lad who was still very young to know what a fanboy really means lol. Oh and I still have Turtles in Time SNES and that game was hard, but not Battletoads hard lol.

In a way, Sega did gave Nintendo a run for there money. Sega was a force to be recon with, but Sega spread too thin and that's why they left the console market.

@eoten: thanks. I should bite the bullet and do it, I guess.

@eoten: I think the SNES can also only use 64KB of samples at once. Those samples had to be short and low quality. But still, it was sampled music!

@xantufrog: This is why I'm questioning holding on to my retro collection, all of the maintenance. I have like 3 or more of some consoles. How am I going to manage all that?

@girlusocrazy: I still play games on my Genesis fairly regularly, though - I'm thinking I ought to get rid of my Nomad, however. Some collector would appreciate it more.

@Jag85: That's really cool! I think the reason games didn't use the PCM channel as much was bad drivers/tools music composition, and lack of storage space, and maybe the complexity of sound mixing when wanting to play more than one sample at a time on the PCM channel. That demo is amazing though!

Sony did a great job in making such a capable low cost chip, and you're right it evolved into the work they were doing with Nintendo to make the PlayStation.

I wonder if the N64 didn't have dedicated sound hardware because of the rift between Nintendo and Sony at the time?

@xantufrog: I agree but a MiSTer or Analogue will do the job too even on my CRT... And I say that as someone who always wanted to play on the original hardware and never use emulators because they weren't perfect enough, someone who invested in a Framemeister and made my own RGB cables and modded my consoles for RGB output so that when all CRTs die I can continue on real hardware.

Yeah, you can certainly build a mister FPGA based multi console system that will be able to mostly reproduce the hardware, and give you the same kind of response and input latency as the real deal. But for some people it's still only just an imitation and I cannot fault them for wanting authenticity.

For me personally, I tend to go both ways on the subject. While you cannot replace the experience of the original console playing the original cartridge with the original controller, I am also a sucker for legitimate improvements, and emulation can certainly improve the look of many of those games just with internal resolution boosts alone. Now that people are using AI texture upscalers like Gigapixel to inject improved and sharpened textures into some of the older 3D titles, you can make a lot of that early 3D stuff look like a new remaster.

Having bad both back in the day, I can't really choose which I preferred. Sega was great for that heavy metal/arcade feel, but for the RPGs you couldn't beat SNES music. I recall being particularly impressed with Zelda: ALTTP, Secret of Mana and of course the Final Fantasies.