Settings
Kega Fusion is a powerful tool with vast customization options that can be tailored to your specific requirements. To make it easier for you to get the most out of the best SEGA emulator, this page has been designed to provide an overview of all the features available.
File Tab
Load MasterSystem ROM – Load a MasterSystem/SG-1000/SC-3000 ROM
Load GameGear ROM – Load a GameGear ROM
Load Genesis/32X ROM – Load a Genesis or 32X ROM
Load SegaCD Image – Load a SegaCD CUE, ISO or BIN Image File
Boot SegaCD – Boot SegaCD from a real CD in your drive (Win only)
Power On/Hard Reset – Power On or Hard Reset current console
Power Off – Power off the current console
Soft Reset – Soft Reset the current console
Game Genie/PAR – Enter/Edit/Toggle/Find Game Genie or PAR codes
Netplay – Join/Start/Exit a Netplay game
Load State As – Load a specified State File
Save State As – Save to a specified State File
Load State/Save State – Load or Save to one of 10 State Slots
Change State Slot – Select State Slot for Load/Save
Save Screenshot – Save Screenshot in TGA or BMP format
Load RAM Cart – Load a SegaCD RAM Cartridge
Create New RAM Cart – Create and Load a new SegaCD RAM Cartridge
File History – List or load up to 16 recently used files
Clear File History – Clears the above list
Exit – Exits Fusion
Video Tab
From here you can select (seperately) the Window size (for Windowed Mode) and the Resolution (for FullScreen Mode). The options available will depend on your system.
“Fixed Aspect (Fit)” will attempt to fit the picture to the selected resolution without altering the aspect ratio, assuming square pixels. This means if you have, for example, a TFT display of 1280×1024, the image will be displayed centered at 1280×960. But if you have a widescreen TFT display of 1280×768, the image will be displayed centered at 960×720 (the closest to the original 4:3 aspect ratio.)
“Fixed Aspect (Zoom)” does kinda the opposite of above. Rather than trying to fit all the picture, it instead tries to fill as much of the screen as possible, again without altering the aspect ratio, assuming square pixels. This means if you have, for example, a widescreen TFT display of 1280×768, the image will be displayed centered at 1280×960 – with 96 pixels at the top and bottom being cut off. It’s similar to the ‘Zoom’ mode found on widescreen TVs.
Both of these modes will scale to exact pixel multiples only if the “Nearest Multiple” option is enabled. Turning this off may allow more of your monitor to be used, but the image may not look as sharp. It’s all down to personal preference.
If both Fixed Aspect options are turned off, the image will just be scaled to fill the whole screen.
The Brighten option simply brightens the display, to take care of the differences in brightness between a CRT TV and a PC monitor.
The Log AVI option will allow you to log gameplay to a video file. Fusion uses a custom video codec, which is included in the zip file you downloaded.
This codec is intended to allow you to log video without affecting emulator performance too much, because other codecs take a large amount of CPU time.
It is not intended as the final codec for your files, however – you should use a tool, such as the excellent VirtualDub (google it) to convert the AVI files to some more popular codec.
The rest of the options are fairly self explanatory. You can toggle FullScreen or Windowed mode, enable or disable VSync, and select the render mode. Render Plugins are available seperately and should be placed either in the same folder as the Fusion.exe, or in their own folder named Plugins.
Please note that VSync in Windowed mode may be quite slow. This is because the only way to do VSync in windowed mode is to physically sit there and wait until the VSync happens. Obviously that can be a huge waste of CPU time, especially if, at the point you start waiting, you’ve only just missed the last VSync.
Sound Tab
From here you can enable/disable sound emulation, and choose your desired samplerate.
It is recommended that, if your PC is fast enough, you select “SuperHQ” mode. The soundchips in each console are emulated much more accurately in this mode, and sound very close to the real thing. The samplerate will also be fixed to 44100Hz when you select this mode. The Mac Build does not have these options, since all Intel Macs are easily fast enough, and always run in SuperHQ mode.
The OVERDRIVE option doubles the volume of sound output, making it sound closer in volume to most other emulators using the MAME sound core. However doing this means that the YM2612, and possibly other chips, are slightly distorted by clipping. If you turn this option off, and your speakers up, you will get a slightly cleaner sound. But no doubt most users will prefer OVERDRIVE mode, since the difference in quality may be very subtle.
You can log sound output to either a WAV file, or a VGM file. Select either of these options, choose a filename to log to, and the logging will begin. To stop logging at any time, simply select the option again.
A Filter is available which will filter the sound very close to a real Model 1 Genesis. For nostalgia freaks only, it sounds much nicer without it.
Options Tab
SET CONFIG – See CONFIG
Country Submenu
Select USA/JAP/EUR modes, or Auto Detect. Auto Detect may not work for all games because of incorrect data in the ROM header. You can also select the preferred order of country detection, for games that work in more than one region.
CD Drive Submenu (Windows Only)
Your CD-ROM drive(s) should appear here, if available. Select the one you wish to boot from.
Perfect Sync
Some SegaCD/MegaCD games will only run correctly if the two MC68000 processors inside the console are perfectly syncronised. This option enables this feature. Traditionally this type of feature requires a lot more processor power, but Fusion is very highly optimised, and this feature isn’t usually noticably slower, so it should be ok to leave it enabled all the time. If you do notice poor performance, or notice any strange problems with certain MegaCD/SegaCD games, you may wish to try it both ways.
You can choose to enable or disable display of a frames per second counter, and the SegaCD LEDs.
Use Alternate Timing
Normally the sound card will be used for timing purposes – this ensures a clean, pop/gap free sound stream. However, some sound cards/drivers do not provide accurate timing information. If you notice any speedup / slowdown or inconsistent speed problems, you can try enabling alternate timing instead. Note though that you may get some problems with sound if you do so. This option will be forced ON if you have no sound card in your machine, or you disable sound.
Sleep While Waiting
Normally, when Fusion has finished rendering a frame it will begin waiting until it’s time to start rendering the next one. The timing required here is very precise. Because during this time Fusion is not completely inactive (it’s constantly saying ‘Are we there yet?’) this results in a high CPU usage measured in the Windows Task Manager. This is not a problem, Fusion will give time up to other applications that need it – still, some people don’t seem to like, or understand, this. SLEEP WHILE WAITING means that Fusion will instead go to sleep at the end of rendering a frame, giving much lower CPU usage measurements. But do understand that if you enable this feature, it is not possible to get the precise timing needed, and Fusion *can not* wake up in time to render the next frame. The frame rate will be ‘choppy’ at best. I leave it up to you to decide which you prefer.
High Priority
Because Fusion does, in fact, give up time to other applications (see above), sometimes background tasks such as virus scan, or other programs that you have running, can cause the framerate to drop or become ‘choppy’. This option should improve the situation considerably. Please note that there is very little point enabling HIGH PRIORITY and SLEEP WHILE WAITING at the same time, because of the problems mentioned above.
Pause/Frame Advance/Fast Forward
Do exactly what you’d expect.
Disable Key Shortcuts
Turns off all keyboard shortcuts (except ESC) to prevent the accidental selection of some option while playing a game with the keyboard.
Config Tab
The config dialog is split into several tabs:
SMS/GG
You can specify where to find the USA/JAP/EUR BIOS files for the Sega Master System, and the GG BIOS file for the GameGear. None of these files are required for operation, but you can use them if you wish.
SxM Files – these are the emulated battery-backed RAM files used in some cartridges. Select the folder where you want these files to be saved.
State Files – See LOAD/SAVE STATE. Select the folder where you want these files to be saved.
SMS Patch/GG Patch – these are files that store GameGenie or PAR codes for each game. Select the folders where you want these files to be saved.
Sprite Limiter – a real SMS/GG can only display a small number of sprites on any one line of the display, and after that, the rest will not be shown. Some games use this fact to make sprites disappear under other objects. However you can disable this effect and let all sprites be
drawn – for some games this will remove a lot of flickering.
BIOS Use – allows you to ignore the BIOS files without having to manually edit them all out. SG-1000/SC-3000 games, for example, probably won’t run
if the BIOS files are enabled, because they lack data that the BIOS files look for.
SMS Border – some people didn’t like the fact that the area outside the SMS display is filled with a “border colour”. This is how a real SMS does things, but by request, this option removes the “border colour” and instead fills the area with black.
YM2413FM – an extra soundchip present only in some Japanese systems. This should not be accessed by any software that doesn’t make use of it, but
you can disable it here should any weird sounds be heard, or if you prefer the sound from a system without this chip.
GG Zoom – Zooms the GameGear screen up to full screen.
Genesis
SRM Files – these are the emulated battery-backed RAM files used in some cartridges. Select the folder where you want these files to be saved.
State Files – See LOAD/SAVE STATE. Select the folder where you want these files to be saved.
Patch Files – these are Game Genie or PAR code files. Select the folder where you want these files to be saved.
BIOS File – you can specify where to find the Genesis BIOS file. This file is not required for operation, but you can use it if you wish.
AutoFix Checksums – Fixes Checksums on ROMs with bad checksums. Some ROMs are *supposed* to have a bad chacksum, and fixing it will stop the game from running. In either case, if your game locks up (often with a red screen) try altering this option and reloading the ROM.
Disable SRAM – Some games have a kind of protection whereby they will try to write to SRAM. The cartridge itself didn’t actually *have* any SRAM – so if the write is successful, the game will not work correctly. Pugsy is
one such game, there may be others.
Disable Border – the border area is filled with black instead of the correct border colour. Again, by request.
Sega CD
USA/JAP/EUR BIOS – locate the BIOS files required for SegaCD emulation. Repeat – These files are *required* for SegaCD emulation.
BRM Files – Select the folder where you wish SegaCD Save Games to be saved.
State Files – See LOAD/SAVE STATE. Select the folder where you want these
files to be saved.
ReadAhead – Select amount of ReadAhead the CD drive does while running SegaCD games. Which works best really depends on the speed of your PC and CD-ROM drive. Experiment !
Built-In RAM – Per Game will create and save a new RAM file for each game loaded. Per BIOS will use just one built-in RAM file for each territory. This is much closer to how the original console operated and is much preferred.
CD+G – Specify how CD+G codes are treated. This is dependant on your CD drive, and is only useful if you are playing an audio CD containing CD+G codes from within the SegaCD BIOS. Most of the time you should leave this OFF (it has no use at all while playing games or normal audio CDs, and may affect performance) but if you have a CD+G disc, you can try either RAW or COOKED mode. Which works best is dependant on your CD drive – a lot of CD drives don’t work at all, but most CD-RW drives should support at least one
or the other format.
Please note that CD+G itself is fairly unreliable – the CD+G data is not protected by checksums/correction data like the rest of the data on a CD. So if you see some corruption while watching a CD+G disk, don’t be too surprised by it 😉 There is not much that can be done about this, its a problem with the CD+G format, and is quite common.
32X
M68K/Master/Slave BIOS – you can specify where to find the three 32X BIOS files for M68K, Master and Slave. These files are not required for use, but you can use them if you wish.
Disable 32X – Unlike most other emulators that treat the 32X as an entirely seperate console, in this emulator the 32X is connected to the Genesis at
all times – much like a real system, Genesis and SegaCD games work as normal, and only when a game attempts to initialise the 32X, it springs to
life. This makes for a nicer user experience – the user does not need to know beforehand if the 32X is required or not. However, although it should not happen, it is possible that some programs MAY accidentally trigger the
32X, which will do nothing much except affect performance. If this is the case it can be disabled (effectively, unplugged) here. Another reason why you may wish to disable the 32X is that some SegaCD/32X games will work with or without the 32X – this will allow you to see both versions.
Fast 32X Timing – this option should be left disabled. It’s only there to allow some prototype carts to work correctly. All retail games work fine without it.
Controllers
Here you can select which type of controller is connected to each of the control ports. You can also select whether each of these controllers uses Keyboard, Joystick, or in some cases, Mouse control. Clicking the DEFINE button allows you to set keys or Joystick buttons.
Genesis controllers supported are: 3 Button Pad, 6 Button Pad, Sega Mouse, Sega Menacer, and Konami Justifier.
SMS controllers supported are: 2 Button ‘Control Pad’, Paddle, and Light Phaser.
The PC Mouse can be used to control the Sega Mouse, Menacer, Justifier, Paddle, and Light Phaser only. It is also used for the Pico Pen/Touchpad.
Also supported is the Sega TeamPlayer (in port 1, port 2, or both), the EA 4-Way-Play (which takes up both ports), and the J-Cart (used for some Codemasters games) – these devices all allow more than 2 controllers to be connected. Note that none of these devices should be enabled unless the game you are playing supports them, otherwise controller input may not work correctly.
Finally, you can invert the Sega Mouse (some games require this) and enable a cursor for the LightGuns, if you wish.
Extras
Specify the folder and format for Screenshot files.
