Contents

About MekaW

"Meka" is the original core of this emulator, which is for DOS. "MekaW" is the Windows port. Meka is widely accepted as the #1 Sega Master System & Game Gear emulator. Meka is not limited to SMS/GG, it also emulates Sega Game 1000, Sega Computer 3000, Super Control Station, Sega Mark III, ColecoVision and Othello Multi Vision. Despite Meka's popularity, the emulator offers few features, which is the reason why this tutorial is quite small.

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SMS??

The SMS (Sega Master System) was Sega's answer to Nintendo's 8-bit NES . Technically superior, the system never gained much in the way of a large user base due to numerous factors. The SMS sported quite a few gems during its short life, however, such as the renowned RPG Phantasy Star and the highly rated 3-D Glasses. Check out SMS Experience's SMS FAQ for more info on this system's history.

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Extracting & Placement

I suggest you make a new folder called "Game Gear" or "Sega Master System" or "SMS/GG" within a folder called "Emulation". You don't have to, but it makes things easier for you if you're not too computer literate. Extract all the contents of this emulator's zip file into the this folder. If you don't know how to extract files from a zip file then read this. Put all of your SMS/GG ROMs into the this folder too. MekaW has zip support, so you do not have to extract ROMs from their zip files. Double-click on "mekaw.exe" to open it.

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First time you open MekaW

You'll get a window asking about sound settings. Just click OK, the default sound settings should be fine.

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Setting up the buttons on your keyboard or gamepad

• Changing the buttons: Look at the above image. Where it says "Click on any to change them" is where you can change your keys. Simply click on a word, press the new key you want it to be, and it's set. Same thing applies to setting up gamepads.

• Setting controls for other players: Just click where it says "1/6: Keyboard 1" to switch to other player controls.

• Changing the controller: This is to change what controller Meka will emulate. Clicking on the image of the controller will change it to either Sports Pad, Paddle Control, or Light Phaser (as shown in the image below).

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Loading a game

Click on the Main menu then Load ROM. If you placed your games in the same folder that MekaW is in, then you will see them here. Click on a game then click on the Load button.

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Full screen

To enter full screen mode, simply go to Video then Full Screen. Press the Esc key to exit.

• Due to the small screen size of Game Gear games, they don't literally fill the screen in MekaW; there's a thick, black border around it.

• If you don't want to manually enable full screen mode very time you open a game, you can set it up so that MekaW does it automatically. To do so, click on Main then Options. You'll arrive here. Put an X where it says to enter full screen upon loading a game.

• MekaW has some blitters, too! Sort of. If you go to Video then Blitters you'll see your options for full screen mode. Choose one and enter full screen mode to see it.

• Smooth: The default. It's less wider than "Smooth Pal".
• Smooth PAL: Wider than "Smooth". I think this is the best blitter! The screen looks much better wider.
• TV Mode: Adds TV scanlines to the screen.
• Windowed: Brings MekaW into Window mode (not literally full screen as the others). The screen size is at 1x zoom, its original size.
• Windows Double: Brings MekaW into Window mode. The screen size is at 2x zoom.
• Scale2x: Attempts to round edges and corners without any smearing or blurring. A very advanced filter!

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Entering Window mode

There are two ways:

1. Just press Alt+Enter.

2. You can also do it by simply choosing "Windowed" or "Windows Doubled" in the blitters, then when you enter 'full screen' MekaW will be a window you can minimize.

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Minimizing MekaW

There are two ways:

1. The official way to do it is to simply choose "Windowed" or "Windows Doubled" in the blitters, then when you enter 'full screen' MekaW will be a window you can minimize.

2. If you're in full screen mode (non-windowed) you can press the Window key to force MekaW to minimize. Expect the music to get all weird until you come back to MekaW.

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Save states

Save states is a feature that saves the exact spot you are in a game. You can access this feature either by the menu or key shortcuts:
• Menu: Once a game is open, go to Main then Save state to save your state. To recall the state, go to Load state.
• Key shortcut: Once a game is open, press F5 to save your state. To recall the state, press F7.

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Screen capture

It's best to first be in full screen mode beforehand. To capture a screen shot simply press the PrtScr (Print Screen) key. Meka will save the screen shot in PNG format and toss it into a folder called "Screenshots".

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WAV and VGM capture

Meka has the ability to capture sound into WAV or VGM format. I don't think you should bother with VGM format. You'll need a special plug-in to be able to play it with WinAmp, then the plug-in could conflict with other music plug-ins, then chaos erupts and hell breaks loose. So, its best to stick with WAV. Anyway, to capture sound to WAV, go to Sound > Dump > WAV Start, and Meka will begin to capture all sound to WAV. Go to WAV Stop when you're done. Make sure not to keep the WAV logging going for too long! WAV's take up a lot of space.

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Q: MekaW randomly disappears when in window mode!

Yeah, while in window mode MekaW might crash and disappear in a blink. The only thing you can do to prevent this problem is not enter window mode.

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Q: The sound cracks and pops!

This appears to be a bug with MekaW for the sound to sometimes crack and pop. I don't know of any way to resolve this on our end. Hopefully the author of MekaW is aware of this and working on fixing it.

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