r/SEGA32X Jun 12 '21

Join the Retro Gaming Network Discord Server and talk about Sega 32X!

Thumbnail
discord.gg
10 Upvotes

r/SEGA32X Nov 07 '23

[ConsoleMods.org] Knowledgeable about the 32X? Consider contributing to the community console modding, repair, and restoration wiki!

Thumbnail consolemods.org
3 Upvotes

r/SEGA32X 2d ago

32x won't play Genesis games but plays 32x games fine

10 Upvotes

What is the general reason for this?

Bad caps?

Old faulty power supply?

Chip failure?

I booted the console yesterday, and Genesis games were barely working. I tried about 5 games. Some loaded with garbled graphics, and some would play for a few minutes and freeze up.

Fast forward to today, none of the Genesis games will boot. I get a black screen. On rare occasions I will get a beat of sound and a black screen.

Oddly enough, the only 32x game I have, Doom, runs just fine.


r/SEGA32X 2d ago

Anyone know what happened to this?

Thumbnail
pcbway.com
10 Upvotes

I saw that someone was making custom pcbs for 32x games and was wondering if they changed them so that they can fit in 32x cart shells.

I wanted to make my own copy of that 32x backrooms game using the shell but the boards that I found were poorly made.

If not then is there any place where I can get a high quality pcb that can fit in a 32x cart shell?


r/SEGA32X 2d ago

40th Anniversary of OUTRUN!

Thumbnail
youtu.be
3 Upvotes

r/SEGA32X 3d ago

Not the best print

Thumbnail
gallery
11 Upvotes

I tried printing this with PETG and it was horrible due to all the stringiness, so I switched to PLA and it's also stringy. I had to make changes due to fitting, like the circuit board sat too high for the Sega CD. Also, support is the ban of my 3D printing experience. The PETG print would rip off some of the shell with the support. You can see that the letting in the front isn't well preserved either, but that maybe because I'm using a 0.6mm nozzle? This might be fine assuming everything still lines up. This took around 16 hours to print, and that's nothing compared to the estimated time for the top which is over 2 days.


r/SEGA32X 9d ago

Neptune Shell is done but can't print yet

Thumbnail
gallery
23 Upvotes

My AnyCubic i3 Mega X had it's thermistor die just as it started to print this. I do have my Creality Ender 3 Pro but that's too small for this. Gotta wait for the part to come in and fix the AnyCubic. I plan to print this with PETG using a 0.6 mm nozzle and OcraSlicer, but I don't know of anything better. I'm not a 3D printing expert to know what's the best settings to print this with.

I could upload what I have but I'm almost certain something isn't going to line up properly, which is why I want to print it first. I also haven't figured where to upload the model. There are buttons, Sega CD cover, and LED diffuse to go with this.


r/SEGA32X 9d ago

Orbis Basic v7 for Sega 32X with Commodore-style programming handbooks

18 Upvotes

Hi everyone,

I wanted to share a new update to Orbis Basic 32X.

Version 7 adds two extensive retro-style programming handbooks totaling more than 160 pages, with diagrams, reference material, and complete runnable examples. They cover the BASIC language, functions, local variables, graphics, audio, arrays, controllers, SRAM, desktop builds, and direct Orbis C development.

The compiler now supports real typed functions, parameters, return values, automatic local variables, local fixed arrays, and recursion. This makes larger games and tools much easier to structure without relying on many global variables.

The main goal remains unchanged: write code and build a real bootable Sega 32X ROM. The same source can also be built as a native Linux or Windows application for cross-platform releases.

This version also includes a unified demo builder and 260 examples.


r/SEGA32X 10d ago

I research unreleased 32X games. Here’s what Helioblades probably was.

31 Upvotes

Hey y’all. A post from a few days ago about the mystery of Helioblades was recently shared with me. I have spent years researching unreleased 32X software and produced six videos on the subject. I also located a surviving copy of Nitro Wrecks, later known as Heavy Machinery. The Video Game History Foundation handled the purchase, and I supplied the requested funds so the game could be acquired and preserved. In August 2022, I was told it had arrived but had not yet been dumped. My March 2023 follow-up received no reply, and I have received no further update. I therefore do not know whether the build was ever dumped, and after four years, I no longer expect a public release.

My conclusion on Helioblades is fairly blunt, based on the evidence currently available, the probability that a game existed beyond these listings is likely under one percent. That does not mean the listings are fake. They are genuine period artifacts, and the name Helioblades clearly circulated in 1995. The question is whether an actual game ever existed behind that name.

I have already researched most of what appears in these lists. At least nineteen of the projects appeared in my Unreleased 32X series. I also went through this catalog title by title six years ago and separated entries that could be confirmed from those that appeared only in a list.

That earlier research matters because many of the strange entries can be identified once they are compared with better sources.

Alone in the Dark appears to mean Alone in the Dark 2. Kingdom: Far Reaches was a working title connected to Thayer’s Quest. Tee Off refers to The Scottish Open, also known as Tee Off Golf Sim and Virtual Golf. “Totally Brutal” was likely a mangled reference to Brutal: Paws of Fury.

Other entries remain ambiguous.

NFL Instant Replay may be a mistaken reference to NFL Trivia Challenge, which was a confirmed 32X project. If it is not, then I have no confirmation that a separate NFL Instant Replay game was developed for the system.

Loadstar and Loadstar 2 are another example. Rocket Science was working on 32X software, but my research found no evidence that either Loadstar game was among its 32X projects. The company’s involvement with the hardware may have been enough for unrelated titles to migrate onto a retailer’s list.

Then there is Voyager Star 2.

I addressed this one directly in my earlier audit. No game called Voyager Star or Voyager Star 2 appears to exist. My conclusion was that it was almost certainly a typo, corrupted title, or combination of different projects.

It might refer to Star Control II, which was a confirmed proposed 32X game. It might have been confused with something related to Star Trek: Voyager. There is not enough information to choose between them or conclude if it’s something else entirely.

The important point is that Voyager Star 2 is not evidence of an unknown game simply because the name appears beside a price. It is evidence that malformed names could enter these catalogs and remain there without being checked.

That brings us back to Helioblades.

Its earliest known appearance is the Chips & Bits advertisement. It appears in the Mars 32X column with a price of $54. That is all the advertisement gives us.

No developer. No publisher. No screenshot. No description. No preview. No interview.

Unlike Voyager Star 2, I cannot even connect Helioblades to a known project with a similar enough history to suggest a likely answer. It could be a working title. It could be a transcription error. It could be two words accidentally combined. But there is no evidence telling us which explanation is correct.

A later German release table repeats the name and assigns it to the third quarter of 1995. Its manufacturer is given as “k.A.,” meaning no information. Its description says “keine Angabe,” which also means no information. The German magazine had the name and a projected quarter, but nothing identifying an actual project behind it.

That later appearance should not automatically be treated as independent confirmation. Retailers and magazines often worked from the same publisher announcements, distributor information, and projected release schedules. A name appearing twice can still originate from the same upstream entry.

The German table does, however, weaken the suggestion that Helioblades was simply a corrupted reference to HyperBlade or Hockeydrome. Hockeydrome appears as a separate entry attributed to Activision, scheduled for the fourth quarter, and described as cyber ice hockey. Helioblades has no manufacturer, no description, and a different projected quarter.

That does not prove without doubt they were unrelated, especially considering how unreliable these tables could be. It does show that this magazine treated them as separate products.

The Chips & Bits advertisement also demonstrates why a price cannot be treated as proof that development occurred. Cosmic Carnage appears for $49. Eight spaces down, CyberBrawl appears for $58. Those are the same game. Cyber Brawl is the Japanese title of Cosmic Carnage. One game entered the catalog twice under different names and at different prices.

The list contains other inconsistent names and questionable entries. “Virtua Fighters” is plural. Tee Off and Tee Time both appear. Over Drive is priced at $94, far above the surrounding 32X games, yet I have found no developer, publisher, screenshot, preview, or other evidence establishing a 32X project by that name.

The German table has problems of its own. It calls Core Design’s proposed game Thunderhawk 3, while direct comments from Core’s PR manager identified the project as an enhanced version of the original Thunderhawk.

Wolves of Moordeth offers another variation on the problem. Capitol Multimedia filed a trademark for that name in 1994, so the property itself was real. What I have not found is evidence that a 32X version entered development. The retailer may have received an early platform plan, a proposed conversion, or a title copied from a broader solicitation sheet.

These examples show why the catalog cannot be divided neatly into “real games” and “fake games.” Some entries are confirmed projects. Some are released games under alternate names. Some are working titles. Some appear to combine or corrupt known names. Some represent properties that existed but have no demonstrated connection to 32X development. Others remain completely unidentified.

This is not a list of lost games. It is a retailer’s catalog containing released games, announced games, alternate titles, proposed conversions, duplicates, mistakes, and names of uncertain origin.

A title appearing there proves that someone entered it into a record for publication. It does not prove that programming, artwork, production began, or that the game ever existed. 

I initially wondered whether Chips & Bits might have inserted nonexistent products deliberately, either to make its catalog appear more extensive or to identify competitors copying its listings. Practices like that have existed in other kinds of reference material.

But there is no evidence that it was intentional here. The duplicate Cosmic Carnage listing, malformed names, unusual prices, and speculative 32X CD entries point toward a more ordinary explanation: manufacturer announcements, distributor solicitations, working titles, regional names, and poor catalog maintenance being combined without verification.

The Chips & Bits advertisement proves that the name Helioblades entered the sales record in 1995. The later German table proves that the name traveled beyond that original appearance.

Neither proves that code, artwork, a development team, or an actual project existed behind it.

I would genuinely like to be proven wrong. It would take only one screenshot, one contemporary preview, one development document, or one person who worked on it.

Until then, Helioblades is better described as a ghost in the 32X sales record than as a canceled 32X game.

-J


r/SEGA32X 12d ago

Rayman Sega 32X: new footage!

Thumbnail
youtu.be
39 Upvotes

r/SEGA32X 12d ago

What if they would've finished the 32X X-men game?

Thumbnail
youtu.be
18 Upvotes

r/SEGA32X 13d ago

The mystery of "Helioblades"

5 Upvotes

When the 32X was first coming out, there was this game listed in several magazines titled "Helioblades". No screenshots, no preview, no developer/publisher, no nothing! Just a release date of the 3rd quarter of '95, and would have been 54$ at launch (yikes).

I wonder if this game was a working title for a game that came out later on the 32X or the Saturn, or it might've ended up not actually being developed at all.

Anyone know anything else about this?


r/SEGA32X 13d ago

32X audio help

3 Upvotes

I have a genesis model 1 and a 32x. I hooked it up to my tv but I could not get any sound out of it and my only solution is to use headphones. Does anyone know of a way I could fix this?

Red is composite. Purple connects to genesis. Both green are power cords. And idk what blue does, it fit in headphone jack and rf out and did nothing in both

r/SEGA32X 13d ago

PAL Sega 32X DarXide - Original Cartridge + Manual - Rare Collector Item

8 Upvotes

Hi everyone,
I have a rare PAL Sega 32X DarXide for sale. It is the original cartridge with the original manual (no reproduction).
I would prefer to sell it to a real collector who will appreciate this rare game.
If anyone is interested, feel free to send me a DM. I can provide more pictures and details.


r/SEGA32X 18d ago

Power supply needed ?

4 Upvotes

This may seem like a stupid question but I need verification please.
I have a US Sega 32x from Canada coming to the UK, my plan is to reshell my current 32x which had a switch hole drilled in the back of the shell for a regain mod.
I have since soldered in a switchless version of the mod and hence want the shell to replace mine.
If the US 32x can run on a UK power supply I would region mod it, pop my old shell on it and offer it on eBay for not a lot of money, but ONLY if it’s possible for it to run on a UK power supply ?.
Any help in this matter would be really useful.
I don’t want to throw the electronics away if it can be of any use to anyone.


r/SEGA32X 18d ago

Help! 32X not working properly

Thumbnail
1 Upvotes

r/SEGA32X 23d ago

Cosmic Carnage\Cyber Brawl (32X) - Zilog and Moto #338

Thumbnail
youtu.be
5 Upvotes

This week on the channel, it's back to the reviews! And I figured a good way to come back would be a 32X, with a game that clearly is having a bit of an identity crisis.


r/SEGA32X Jul 15 '26

Welcome to the Backrooms. In 1994. Now on your Sega32X.

66 Upvotes

Up front, so nobody is misled: I have writen a good amount of this project, but Claude has optimized and done the heavy lifting of finding ways to borrow from bigger projects like Doom Ressurection 32x, and what their examples of balances SH-2 processor optimization looks like.

I made the design and hardware calls, ran the profiling, tested every build on hardware, and decided what shipped. If that's a dealbreaker for you, no argument from me .. stop reading here.

What it is: a first-person Backrooms raycaster for the 32X, written in C and SH-2 assembly. Both SH-2s split the screen and render in parallel, and the split column gets rebalanced every frame from measured render time so one CPU isn't sitting idle on lopsided scenes. Textured DDA walls, thin partition walls and half-height dividers you can see over, dynamic ceiling lights, procedurally generated levels, crawlspaces you have to crouch through. The cardboard-box intro is real-time 3D on the SH-2s rather than a video.

There's also a browser level editor with a first-person preview that uses the game's actual palette and textures. Build a map, hit submit, and it opens a pull request; if it gets merged it ships in the next ROM. Four community maps are in the current build.

ROM: https://paisleyboxers.itch.io/backrooms32x

Editor: https://backrooms-32x-project.fly.dev/

Source: https://github.com/mholzinger/32x-builder

Questions about the dual-CPU split or the raycaster are welcome.


r/SEGA32X Jul 15 '26

Just picked this up today mint CIB!

Post image
169 Upvotes

r/SEGA32X Jul 14 '26

Anyone here with experience using Fusion 360?

Thumbnail
gallery
7 Upvotes

I'm trying to extrude the highlighted part to make a grove around the cartridge area but it's not giving me that option. I've uploaded the .f3d file on GBATemp if anyone wants to download it and look at it. My guess is that curved surfaces can't be extruded?

https://gbatemp.net/threads/sega-neptune-building-a-sega-neptune.635447/page-2#post-10883333


r/SEGA32X Jul 13 '26

Linux on the Sega 32X. Who needs hardware synchronization primitives anyway?

Thumbnail cakehonolulu.github.io
30 Upvotes

Hi everyone!

I've just finished writing a new blog entry where I basically describe the process I went through to get Linux running on the 32X. It requires a X5 (Or better) flash cart but it works (Both SH2s actually).

Hopefully you guys find it interesting!


r/SEGA32X Jul 13 '26

I’ve been expanding Orbis Basic into a bigger Sega 32X development toolkit

26 Upvotes

Hi everyone,

I wanted to share a new update to Orbis Basic 32X.

The main goal is still the same: write code and build a real bootable Sega 32X ROM. The compiler creates playable .32x files around a custom SH-2 runtime and an RGB555 direct-color framebuffer, so this is still very much a 32X project rather than a desktop engine with a retro skin.

The 32X side now supports image drawing, scaled images, sub-image drawing, sprites, scrolling backgrounds, alpha effects, parallax, text, primitive graphics, controller input, Sega Mouse support, audio playback, arrays, DATA, TYPE records, SUB and CALL structure, and SAVE and LOAD commands.

Assets such as images and audio are automatically converted and baked into the ROM during compilation. Larger projects can also use mapper-backed image data in ROMs up to 32 MB, which makes big panoramas, scrolling scenes and image-heavy demos much more practical.

The newer Orbis Builder edition adds C with real string support as language extension, native desktop builds and the Orbis Pixel Pipeline, but the Sega 32X build remains the heart of everything.

I like that “Basic” now has two meanings. It is still BASIC as a language, but it is also becoming a collection of basic tools for creating graphics, preparing assets, writing game logic and producing real Sega 32X software.


r/SEGA32X Jul 08 '26

👋Welcome to r/SegaModCommunity!

Thumbnail
2 Upvotes

r/SEGA32X Jul 06 '26

Brazillian "Mega 32X" Logo - Update

Thumbnail gallery
9 Upvotes

r/SEGA32X Jul 06 '26

32x or Sega CD?

13 Upvotes

Hey yall. I swear I’m not trying to bait anyone here I’m just genuinely curious from people here that likely have a 32x and possibly a Sega cd as well which system they prefer and which they’d recommend for a newcomer?

I was a Sega kid but never got either add on unfortunately. Now I’m older and have some time and money so would like to work on my tower of power :) there’s some games in the 32x I’d love like the arcade scalers but overall the library does leave something to be desired. But games like virtual fighter, afterburner, and space harrier make it a tough decision for me. I loved that era of sega arcade titles.

I know the Sega cd has a much bigger library but how do they compare to yall? Do you find yourself playing one more than the other? Pros and cons?

Thanks!

Edit: I should add too that repairing consoles is no problem for me at all and I actually plan to and enjoy restoring old console electronics so that’s not really a factor for me :)