The Sega Genesis emulator
This is Genesis Plus GX. It emulates Sega Genesis and Sega CD games. I’ve configured Advanced Launcher to switch the SHIELD to 60Hz refresh rate if your TV supports it. So you should stick to NTSC (US) games to ensure perfect smooth scrolling.
Start: Start NVIDIA: Toggle RetroArch menu
For Sega CD support you will need the BIOS file for the game region. If you only use NTSC (US) games then you will only need the first one on the list:
US: bios_CD_U.bin EU: bios_CD_E.bin JP: bios_CD_J.bin
The BIOS files must be placed in the RetroArch system folder on the SHIELD:
Genesis Plus GX is compatible with roms and cd images in the following formats:
- .md
- .smd
- .zip (zipped .md and .smd files)
- .bin/.cue with support for .ogg audio tracks
For a quick guide to bin/cue files with compressed audio scroll to the bottom of this page.
You need to place the games in the genesis rom folder on the SHIELD. You should name the files the way you want them to be listed in SPMC:
When you’ve added games to the genesis folder you must do a scan of the folder in Advanced Launcher:
You are now ready to play Sega Genesis and Sega CD games!
Sega CD games with compressed audio
The reasoning behind using compressed audio is to save space without any detectable loss of quality. As an example, Terminator CD takes up about 470MB in regular bin/cue format. If you compress the audio files it only takes up about 135MB. The process is fairly technical though, so if you don’t care about the extra disk space then don’t bother with it.
You need to do the following:
- Use a CD ripper to rip the data track and audio tracks from the bin/cue
- Compress the audio tracks into .ogg format (.mp3 is not supported)
- Update the cue file to use the compressed audio files
There are guides for how to do this if you Google it, so I won’t go into details with that here. I’ll provide this example of the .cue file for Terminator CD for inspiration:
FILE "Terminator CD 01.dat" BINARY TRACK 01 MODE1/2048 INDEX 01 00:00:00 FILE "Terminator CD 02.ogg" OGG TRACK 02 AUDIO PREGAP 00:02:00 INDEX 01 00:00:00 FILE "Terminator CD 03.ogg" OGG TRACK 03 AUDIO INDEX 01 00:00:00 FILE "Terminator CD 04.ogg" OGG TRACK 04 AUDIO INDEX 01 00:00:00 FILE "Terminator CD 05.ogg" OGG TRACK 05 AUDIO INDEX 01 00:00:00 FILE "Terminator CD 06.ogg" OGG TRACK 06 AUDIO INDEX 01 00:00:00 FILE "Terminator CD 07.ogg" OGG TRACK 07 AUDIO INDEX 01 00:00:00 FILE "Terminator CD 08.ogg" OGG TRACK 08 AUDIO INDEX 01 00:00:00 FILE "Terminator CD 09.ogg" OGG TRACK 09 AUDIO INDEX 01 00:00:00 FILE "Terminator CD 10.ogg" OGG TRACK 10 AUDIO INDEX 01 00:00:00
If you are using compressed audio files you usually end up with 10 or more files for just one game. You can place the files in a subfolder in the genesis folder instead of mixing them with regular Sega Genesis roms:
