[SOLVED] Game Gear Palette

[Sunny Cassette]

Hi, recently i tried to rip some sprites of the Sonic 8-bit games, and i found a problem with the Game Gear ones, the palette.

The Master System games doesn't seem to have any palette issues, i tried Sonic Chaos with 3 different emulators (Dega, Emulicious and Meka) and the first 2 ones are exactly the same, Meka is a bit different, and they also fit with the Sega Retro palette.

But the Game Gear palette is different in each emulator, this time i tried with a Sonic Triple Trouble (Game Gear exclusive), and the palettes looks very similar but they aren't the same. Also none of the palettes fits with the Sega Retro one.

So, why does this happen? And which one is the "real" one? I searched a lot online but i didn't find any information about this thread, so i wanted to clear up things first before start ripping sprites.

Link to Sega Retro palettes: https://segaretro.org/Palette

[BCat]

Like in older systems, both of those systems use indexed values to represent colors. They index each value to a position within a color range, and display colors based on what values they are indexed to. Emulators do the same, but each one has a different idea of what this color range should be, leading to the discrepancies shown here.

This Wikipedia page lists the palettes used for different systems, and is generally accurate as far as color depth goes. The Master System and Game Gear are listed as having 6-bit and 12-bit color depths respectively.

As for what color depth each emulator uses:

• Dega uses 6-bit (MS) and 9-bit (GG) color. The latter results in half of the color information being lost, as each pair of values is interpreted as a single color.
  
• Emulicious uses 6-bit (MS) and 12-bit (GG) color, matching those found on the Wikipedia list.
  
• Meka uses 16-bit color for both consoles, resulting in values being interpreted as off-range colors. Meka also does not seem to account for the extra bit given to the green channel, so an identical value in red or blue is displayed differently in green, best seen with grays.
  

As for the Sega Retro page, it has conflicting information. The text uses 9-bit values, matching Dega, but the diagram is completely different. It uses 12-bit color, but with hex increments of 10 rather than 11, resulting in a much dimmer palette.

Overall, Emulicious shows the most consistent results with color, so I recommend using it over the others you listed.

[Sunny Cassette]

Like in older systems, both of those systems use indexed values to represent colors. They index each value to a position within a color range, and display colors based on what values they are indexed to. Emulators do the same, but each one has a different idea of what this color range should be, leading to the discrepancies shown here.

This Wikipedia page lists the palettes used for different systems, and is generally accurate as far as color depth goes. The Master System and Game Gear are listed as having 6-bit and 12-bit color depths respectively.

As for what color depth each emulator uses:

• Dega uses 6-bit (MS) and 9-bit (GG) color. The latter results in half of the color information being lost, as each pair of values is interpreted as a single color.
  
• Emulicious uses 6-bit (MS) and 12-bit (GG) color, matching those found on the Wikipedia list.
  
• Meka uses 16-bit color for both consoles, resulting in values being interpreted as off-range colors. Meka also does not seem to account for the extra bit given to the green channel, so an identical value in red or blue is displayed differently in green, best seen with grays.
  

As for the Sega Retro page, it has conflicting information. The text uses 9-bit values, matching Dega, but the diagram is completely different. It uses 12-bit color, but with hex increments of 10 rather than 11, resulting in a much dimmer palette.

Overall, Emulicious shows the most consistent results with color, so I recommend using it over the others you listed.

Many thanks! Finally an answer to this problem (I have been searching this for a couple of weeks tbh), and very well explained too. So yeah, I'm gonna use Eumlicious then, also because it's the one with more options. Thanks again!