MegaGRRL is an ESP32-powered VGM player, playing tracks from the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, Master System, and more on real YM2612 and SN76489 sound chips.
MegaGRRL is a system comprised of ESP32-powered hardware to interface with original YM2612 and SN76489 sound chips, and FreeRTOS-based firmware using the ESP-IDF framework. Its playback engine is focused on high accuracy and supporting as many features of the VGM file format as possible. It is a completely standalone player, requiring no connection to a host PC. MegaGRRL OS has a fully-featured, easy to use UI, and several unique features which make it the premier hardware playback solution.
There are currently two main hardware versions. The same firmware targets both.
- MegaGRRL Desktop
- MegaGRRL Portable (still in development)
The MegaGRRL Desktop hardware also supports the following MegaMods allowing sound chips other than the YM2612/SN76489 to be used:
- OPNA MegaMod - Uses the OPNA (YM2608). Can also play VGMs for OPN (YM2203) and AY-3-8910.
- OPL3 MegaMod - Uses the OPL3 (YMF262). Can also play VGMs for OPL2 (YM3812) and OPL (YM3526).
This repository contains the MegaGRRL OS firmware, and includes the hardware as submodules. Use --recursive when cloning the repo to get the hardware files as well.
- esp-idf-patches/ - ESP-IDF v3.3.4 SPI master driver patches, required for build
- hardware/ - Hardware files for all base board versions, and MegaMods for the Desktop version
- firmware/ - Firmware for the ESP32
- utils/ - Utilities, such as for packing firmware updates
- Windows users: A complete guide is available here.
- Other platforms: MegaGRRL OS is built like a standard ESP-IDF v3.3.4 project, but some patches are required. Please see doc/compiling.md for more information.
To update to the latest firmware after your player is up and running, download the latest .mgu file for your hardware version (desktop or portable) from the Releases page and copy it to the SD card. Launch the update from MegaGRRL's file browser.
The defacto standard Genesis/Mega Drive VGM repository is Project 2612. Both .vgm and .vgz files are supported, but load times are shorter if using vgm. VGMs for other sound chips can be obtained from VGMRips.