Sega Megadrive Classics (d3t, 2018) [PS4, Switch etc]

[Turrican]

I know, I know, these are the same fifty rotten ROMs regurgitated seemingly forever. And yes, I used the search function but no relevant thread did appear.

Yes, I know: these aren't by the holy M2.

Nonetheless I'd like to hear hands-on impression from fellow members. Is this borderline unplayable for action stuff due to lag? Is it better or worse than, say, the emulation in the Mini? And so on.

At a quick glance it looks leaps and bounds better than the two Digital Eclipse efforts on PS2 and PS3...

Relevant threads with dates:

Digital Eclipse, 2006 release, 28 Genesis ROMs + five coin-ops, which differ entirely from PS2 to PSP. Shadow Dancer excluded for Europe:
Sega Genesis Collection is out today Nov 2006

Digital Eclipse / Backbone, 2009 release, 40 Genesis ROMs + 9 coin-ops:
PS3 Sonic's Genesis collection vs PS2 Sega Genesis Collectio Jan 2011

d3t, 2010-2012 Steam releases in five volumes. The PS4 and Switch 2018 releases seem to be clearly based on these:
SEGA Genesis Classic Collection: Gold Edition Dec 2011
see also:
Sega Genesis Classics (XBO) VS. Other Sega Mega Collections / MY LIFE IN GAMING youtuber comparison
flowchart found on GameFAQs


Holy M2, 2019 release, entirely different concept and mostly different pool of ROMs:
Sega announced the Sega Mega Drive Mini (tentative tile) April 2018

[BrianC]

I know, I know, these are the same fifty rotten ROMs regurgitated seemingly forever. And yes, I used the search function but no relevant thread did appear.

Yes, I know: these aren't by the holy M2.

Nonetheless I'd like to hear hands-on impression from fellow members. Is this borderline unplayable for action stuff due to lag? Is it better or worse than, say, the emulation in the Mini? And so on.

At a quick glance it looks leaps and bounds better than the two Digital Eclipse efforts on PS2 and PS3...

I heard it's worse than the Digital Eclipse collections and has at least 7 frames of input lag on PS4.

[Phellan Wolf]

I own the switch port and it is terrible. The input latency makes even Streets of Rage 2 hard to play, not to mention Golden Axe series wich are a mess. There are lots of options to chose from but the overall package is really sluggish.

[Mero]

I have this on PS4, the line up of games is good but I can only call this release pretty shoddy, definitely inferior to previous releases as already mentioned.

The scanline option is so crappy that to me it's unusable, and the other filters are all absolutely awful, I would have taken a decent filter in the absence of a good scanline option but no, filterless and scanlineless is the only viable option.

Control options are bad with very little scope for changing anything, and no autofire which is a pain for some games.

I only played a small handful of titles but but there's a blatant audio bug in Sonic 1(if there's a lot of rings bouncing around or being collected, the sound will go distorted for a few seconds), so in at least one case we can add shonky emulation to the list as well.

As for input lag, it wouldn't surpise me, though I did manage to 1CC Bare Knuckle 3, but on yhe other hand I was struggling a bit with the somersaults in Revenge of Shinobi.

I think the devs spent most of their time making that crappy front end that has you in a virtual bedroom plugging virtual cartridges into a virtual Megadrive.

[Turrican]

That's what I heard too, about latency, however, I tried Sword of Vermillion on my ps2 collection and the difference in audio fidelity favors definitely the one on PS4. Like, night and day difference.

The PS3 collection on the other hand has fully customizable buttons for each game, but you can't remove the atrocious borders, and the image is very soft (and zero scanline options)...

[cave hermit]

I quite enjoyed the PS4 collection when it was first released. I was not aware there was a whole 7 frames of lag, that sounds horrible. That being said, I don't know if I'm just not skilled to the point that input lag would factor into my gameplay performance, but I also acquired an OSSC SCART Genesis setup around the same time, and didn't really perceive any difference.

[Turrican]

well, playing the Backbone 2009 and the latest d3t side to side (having both plugged on the same HDTV), I must say I haven't noticed any significant difference in control and response. The Backbone outputs with a mandatory bilinear filtering, while the d3t at least has a raw output (all the other filters are hideous and scanlines aren't very pretty, as mentioned). Tried SoR2 and Comix Zone mostly, which reinforced me in the feeling that the d3t sounds punchier and closer to original hardware.

Playing the Sega Ages Revenge of Shinobi side to side with the d3t and the double jump issue definitely comes up in the latter. I can 100% double jump on the M2, 80% of times on the d3t.

The double jump is a good indicator or input lag I guess. Only problem is, Revenge isn't present on the Backbone and the double jump in Shinobi III must have a different degree of tolerance because I can flawlessly trigger it no matter the version.

The abysmal absence of any input configuration on the d3t is bewildering at first, until you realize that a grand total of two games have 6Bpad support (Comix Zone and Oasis/Thor... Didn't try the Shinobi III hidden trick).