fMSX

VGB

VGBA

iNES

MG

ColEm

Speccy

AlmostTI

Windows

Android

Symbian

How?

Who?

Tell!

News  |  Manual  |  Downloads  |  Screenshots  |  Windows  |  MSDOS  |  Symbian

The Latest Version of MasterGear is 4.9!

MasterGear 4.9 for Windows and Linux, released on March 31 2021, makes most command line options work on Windows, adds optional frame rate display, and fixes Windows sound initialization, among other things.

If you like MG-Windows and want to support its further development, consider downloading MG-Android for your phone or tablet. The Android version comes with many cool extras, such as built-in Cheatopedia with codes for dozens of popular games, State Exchange for exchanging gameplay states with other users, and more. Give it a try and report any encountered problems in the discussion group.

Sorry, but still no apple for iOS users (blame Steve Jobs for your terrible closed platform).

The complete list of features and the list of new features and fixes can be found in the documentation.

What is MasterGear?
MasterGear (MG) is a program that emulates 8bit SEGA videogames on your computer. It runs games made for SEGA MasterSystem (Mark3 in Japan) and GameGear, as well as their predecessors: SG1000, SC3000, SF7000, and Mark2. MG will also help hobbyists who still write software for these systems to debug their works without using rare and costly development hardware.

I started working on MG in 1996, after finding some technical documentation about SEGA MasterSystem on the Net. Writing an SMS emulator was relatively simple, as I already had experience with the fMSX emulator and SEGA's consoles are very similar to MSX computers. Since then, I extended MG to support the GameGear handheld and the previous generation of SEGA consoles: the SG1000, the keyboard-equipped SC3000 home computer, and the disk-based SF7000 computer. There is also support for add-ons, such as enchanced FM sound chips found in Japanese SEGA consoles and serial EEPROMs used to save games in some GameGear cartridges.

Because MG source code is highly portable, it runs on many different platforms, from Apple Macintosh to Sony PlayStation (see MasterGear Ports section below). While the source code is not available to the general public, I do share it with people every now and then, when they ask nicely and if I like their projects.

MG is still being developed, although not as actively as before because most features have already been implemented. At the moment, I am mostly dealing with bug fixes, adapting MG for commercial applications, and extending functionality beyond that of the original consoles.

Licensing MasterGear
MG is written in portable C language and will run on any sufficiently fast computing device, be it a computer, a videogame console, a PDA, an MP3 or DVD player, a set-top box, a cell phone, or even a digital camera. For example, MG has been successfully used to add gaming capabilities to several DVD players. If your company plans on using SEGA games in its products, you can license MG from me. I will also point you to a place where you can license the games themselves. Finally, I am available for consulting work in the software emulation, embedded programming, and other fields. See my resume and contact me if interested.

Playing Your Games With MasterGear
MasterGear does not contain any games, as they are copyrighted by the companies which produced them. You will have to find the cartridge images yourself, using Google or other search engines. I do suggest you buy the original cartridge for every image you are using, or use a copier on the cartridges you own.

At This Site

MasterGear Windows now free for all versions of Windows MasterGear Android for Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) and newer devices MasterGear Linux for 64bit Ubuntu Linux MasterGear Maemo for Nokia N800/N810 tablets (or install directly to device) MasterGear 2.0 FreeBSD binaries for 80x86 (5.x-RELEASE) MasterGear 1.3 OSF/1 binaries for DEC Alpha MasterGear 2.0 Solaris binaries for SPARC MasterGear 1.2 SunOS binaries for SPARC MasterGear MSDOS is no longer developed, as MSDOS is dead :( MasterGear Symbian for S60e3 and UIQ3 is dead too (but see the old site) EMUL8 Discussion Group discuss your problems here HOWTO for Linux users EMUTools, Z80 emulation core, etc. The Address Book look up email addresses here

MasterGear Ports
MasterGear Macintosh by John Stiles MasterGear PocketPC by Panutat Tejasen MasterGear Acorn by David McEwen MasterGear OS/2 by Darrell Spice Jr. MasterGear BeOS by Brian Verre MasterGear PlayStation by Bero (in Japanese) MasterGear Nintendo64 by Maxime Henrion MasterGear PC98 (in Japanese) MasterGear PC98 by Bero (in Japanese) MasterGear FM-Towns (in Japanese)

Other Stuff
Improved Unix/X drivers by Ian Spielman SVGALib drivers for Linux by Tim Fisken Drivers for Linux by Hans de Goede SMS Copier Schematics by Andy Lindsay

Built-in Debugger

NetPlay Feature (connecting)

Aladdin (GG)

Fire & Forget 2 (SMS)

Hook (SMS)

Thunder Blade (SMS)

Judge Dredd (GG)

Strider 2 (SMS)

Batman and Robin (GG)

Basic (SC3000)

Zaxxon (SG1000)

Yeno Demo (SF7000)

Rock and Bolt (SG1000)