[UninspiredUsername]

Sorry if this would be considered the wrong forum, I didn't know exactly where to post it.

I heard that pal games are around 17% slower then ntsc games. For Sonic games on newer consoles, I can play them on 60hz (ntsc) but I was thinking about attempting some speed runs for some of the old Sonic games on my Mega Drive. Since my system is pal (and there's no way for me to play it in 60hz) I was wondering if anyone knew whether this would give me any advantages or disadvantages compared to people playing in 60hz?

[GerbilSoft]

For the Genesis / Mega Drive, Sonic 1 and 2 are both poorly coded and don't compensate for the video frequency. This could give an unfair advantage, since it gives you more time to react to events onscreen. (The in-game timer doesn't compensate either, which makes one second in-game take around 1.16 seconds real-time.) Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles do have correct 50 Hz coding, so it's not a problem on those games.

On the 3D side, Sonic Adventure 2 apparently has a glitch in 50 Hz mode where sometimes it interprets a single button press as a double press, which can cause unwanted homing attacks. Switching to 60 Hz mode fixes that problem.

Also note that PAL is not restricted to 50 Hz - there's a PAL60 option available on the Dreamcast and GameCube that uses the PAL color encoding with the M monochrome signal (PAL-M).

For the record: I use 60 Hz VGA on my Dreamcast, 60 Hz component video (VGA with transcoder) on my Wii, and 60 Hz NTSC-M composite video on my older consoles. (US region)

[UninspiredUsername]

For the Genesis / Mega Drive, Sonic 1 and 2 are both poorly coded and don't compensate for the video frequency. This could give an unfair advantage, since it gives you more time to react to events onscreen. (The in-game timer doesn't compensate either, which makes one second in-game take around 1.16 seconds real-time.) Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles do have correct 50 Hz coding, so it's not a problem on those games.

Ah ok, thanks for that. If I attempt speed runs for Sonic 1 and 2 maybe I should use an ntsc rom then. Also do you know if the pal versions of Sonic 1 and 2 on the Master System "poorly coded" or are they ok?

On the 3D side, Sonic Adventure 2 apparently has a glitch in 50 Hz mode where sometimes it interprets a single button press as a double press, which can cause unwanted homing attacks. Switching to 60 Hz mode fixes that problem.

Also note that PAL is not restricted to 50 Hz - there's a PAL60 option available on the Dreamcast and GameCube that uses the PAL color encoding with the M monochrome signal (PAL-M).

Yeah, for SA and SA2B i've been playing them on 60hz. And I used to get that glitch alot when I didn't.

[GerbilSoft]

I'm unsure about the SMS versions of Sonic 1 and 2.

Also, note that the PAL versions of Sonic 1 and 2 are exactly the same as the NTSC versions (i.e. the same ROM image). Sonic & Knuckles is also the same ROM in all regions - it merely looks at the console's region setting to determine how to adjust in-game timing. Sonic 3 is pretty much the same in all regions, except for one byte - the region code. That byte doesn't affect the timing though, as once it gets past the region lockout code, it simply looks at the system settings to determine what value it should use for timing.