FPGA Based Videogame System

[jamon1567]

 

 

You are referring to early revision specs for a yet unreleased product. It is very likely that the preliminary specs posted on the analogue website may have changed. These are controller/receiver pairs sold together. I find it higly evident with the unfortunate discontinuation of the old 8bitdo BT controllers, the new lineup of snes inspired controllers moving forward will use the new, proprietary "2.4Ghz" low latency tech current present in the recently released snes classic controllers.

 

I agree with this and will add that I also think all of their receivers will support both standards with up to date firmware. However, there seems to be conflicting information out there and it isn't really even clearly stated on 8Bitdo's website. That's why I'll be very interested to see what Atariboy actually ends up with when he receives the bundle he ordered on Amazon.

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

On a side note, it looks like they discontinued their previous NES and SNES bluetooth models and replaced them with the new ones. In fact, they don't even offer an NES type replica controller anymore. I have both the SNES and NES (which came with my NT Mini) and can say that I don't weep for the NES one which is complete trash, but I've had much better results with the SNES controller. The new ones are fine, but I liked that the old ones were pretty much exact replicas style wise. Oh well, I guess if you were on the fence about getting one though, now would be the time while places still have stock.

This is indeed unfortunate. I have the NES30, the SFC30, and the FC30. The SNES30 and SFC30 are identical in terms of feel, however I vastly prefer the feel of the FC30 to the NES30 due to the rounded contours.

 

This reminds me, I need to get off my ass and buy an NES30 or FC30 PRO version before they become unobtainable. Which version, well that is up to aesthetics!

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

I agree with this and will add that I also think all of their receivers will support both standards with up to date firmware. However, there seems to be conflicting information out there and it isn't really even clearly stated on 8Bitdo's website. That's why I'll be very interested to see what Atariboy actually ends up with when he receives the bundle he ordered on Amazon.

The current receivers/controllers use off the shelf bt encoders. Due to congestion in the 2.4Ghz band, BT is becoming not a good solution for wireless gaming especially in high density apartment dwellers. 8bitdo may also pay royalty due to BF patents, increasing product costs, and proprietary custom solution will avoid this. But in this case, why stick to 2.4Ghz? 5Ghz band is less congested and has more difficulty travelling through walls, leading to higher quality connections for same room interface. They could have moved their proprietary tech on 5Ghz and virtually eliminated future congestion issues.

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

Even so. If the the chip is "read" protected or uses other obfuscation methods to keep it all a secret there are simple ways around it. Decapping is a tried and true method. Done many-a-times on more complex parts.

 

It seems to be an unspoken rule to not mess with currently-in-production hobby material. So far self-policing seems to work ok.

Decapping will not tell you what state a bit in flash memory was set at. Only mask rom or hardwired traces. A decapped speakjet chip won't reveal anything not present on any other pic micro, regardless of program.

[Atariboy]

You are referring to early revision specs for a yet unreleased product. It is very likely that the preliminary specs posted on the analogue website may have changed. These are controller/receiver pairs sold together. I find it higly evident with the unfortunate discontinuation of the old 8bitdo BT controllers, the new lineup of snes inspired controllers moving forward will use the new, proprietary "2.4Ghz" low latency tech current present in the recently released snes classic controllers. I will happily eat crow if the new receivers/controllers for the super nt are compatible with older 8bitdo receivers/controllers.

 

FYI, all snes classic controllers should be b/c with nes classic, given the classic controller standard originated by nintendo for wii have all functions of the nes. Unlike using a real snes controller on real nes hardware, usage of a snes classic controller on nes classic utilizes a/b onstead of b/y, as it did on wii vc.

 

All I know is that what I ordered is listed as a SN30 Bluetooth controller with a SNES Retro Receiver (Which has only ever been available as a Bluetooth receiver, with no SNES receiver available on the market today to go with the new and already available SN30 2.4G controller and no word that one is ever planned). Furthermore, it's advertised as both being compatible with all previous 8BitDo controllers as well as PS3/PS3/Wii Classic Controller/Wii U Pro Controllers.

 

Until something official is said that varies from all of this, I see absolutely no reason to not believe them when the product is going to be shipping in a matter of a few short weeks. I see nothing on any site that says that what I ordered is going to be a SN30 2.4G with a brand new type of 8BitDo SNES receiver.

 

Time will tell...

Edited December 14, 2017 by Atariboy

[F34R]

 

All I know is that what I ordered is listed as a SN30 Bluetooth controller with a SNES Retro Receiver (Which has only ever been available as a Bluetooth receiver, with no SNES receiver available on the market today to go with the new and already available SN30 2.4G controller and no word that one is ever planned). Furthermore, it's advertised as both being compatible with all previous 8BitDo controllers as well as PS3/PS3/Wii Classic Controller/Wii U Pro Controllers.

 

Until something official is said that varies from all of this, I see absolutely no reason to not believe them when the product is going to be shipping in a matter of a few short weeks. I see nothing on any site that says that what I ordered is going to be a SN30 2.4G with a brand new type of 8BitDo SNES receiver.

 

Time will tell...

Feb. 1st is when mine is scheduled for release. A wish it was a few short weeks.

[Deltax5]

Is there any hints at all if the super nt will be jailbraked. If the careter of the jailbrake is here wonder if you can give us hints?

If it does my guess the genesis will be in there since it came out the same era.

Hoping for turbo graphics(pc engine), gbc, gba, maybe sega cd and pc engine cd if they can fit it in there and the older cores from the anoluge nt mini (but that is asking a bit much since it may be a selling point)

 

I hope someone decides to make a fpga that is stricly for Arcade cores. I guess they could make it a neo geo system then add a jail brake for other systems. making it strong enough to play mvc 2 games and down would be awesome (I know it's asking a bit much but were dealing with a market where one game can be 3 grand, make it happen even if the price is a bit high.) . It will be awesome cause custom arcade cabinets, pinball machine, ect are popular and have to deal with mame computers or ageing jamma connector boards.

Edited December 14, 2017 by Deltax5

[NE146]

In my mind the Super NT will simply be an FPGA snes with HDMI out, and nothing else. That way I won't be disappointed one way or the other if it remains as such, and can only be happily surprised if it turns out otherwise with any jailbroken "bonus".

[cfillak]

Is there any hints at all if the super nt will be jailbraked. If the careter of the jailbrake is here wonder if you can give us hints?

If it does my guess the genesis will be in there since it came out the same era.

Hoping for turbo graphics(pc engine), gbc, gba, maybe sega cd and pc engine cd if they can fit it in there and the older cores from the anoluge nt mini (but that is asking a bit much since it may be a selling point)

 

I hope someone decides to make a fpga that is stricly for Arcade cores. I guess they could make it a neo geo system then add a jail brake for other systems. making it strong enough to play mvc 2 games and down would be awesome (I know it's asking a bit much but were dealing with a market where one game can be 3 grand, make it happen even if the price is a bit high.) . It will be awesome cause custom arcade cabinets, pinball machine, ect are popular and have to deal with mame computers or ageing jamma connector boards.

Analogue has said we'll get some more info tomorrow. I doubt they'll say anything about the jailbreak. If I were you I'd just look at the Super NT as an FPGA HDMI SNES, and anything else as a bonus. Genesis and PC Engine are certainly possible on the Super NT, but I and other have spent pages arguing about whether Analogue will release a standalone Genesis console. So for those systems its more of a business consideration rather than a technical one. Gameboy and Gameboy Color cores already exist on NT Mini, but who knows if they'll get ported. Super Game Boy is compatible with Super NT though. GBA is definitely not going to happen. Sega CD is unlikely even on a standalone Genesis console, for a variety of reasons. PC Engine CD may be possible since it's not a whole separate system like the Sega CD is.

[Deltax5]

Analogue has said we'll get some more info tomorrow. I doubt they'll say anything about the jailbreak. If I were you I'd just look at the Super NT as an FPGA HDMI SNES, and anything else as a bonus. Genesis and PC Engine are certainly possible on the Super NT, but I and other have spent pages arguing about whether Analogue will release a standalone Genesis console. So for those systems its more of a business consideration rather than a technical one. Gameboy and Gameboy Color cores already exist on NT Mini, but who knows if they'll get ported. Super Game Boy is compatible with Super NT though. GBA is definitely not going to happen. Sega CD is unlikely even on a standalone Genesis console, for a variety of reasons. PC Engine CD may be possible since it's not a whole separate system like the Sega CD is.

I just got the SD2SNES, just hoping a jail brake so I can actually play those games that don't work for it. Just waiting if not I have to buy some of those games I want I guess, It was said it was possible but needs lots of work to program into the fpga chip that was many years ago. wonder if it is possible to emulate the chips instead making it a hybrid for those games. I really don't know much how it works sorry. Im happy what I got I guess.

SOme of those cores I mentioned are just a dream. It would mean I don't have to have so much consoles on display to play.

Just gotta wait a month or 2 after release I guess if he decides to release it. He is probably working on it, if not for awile if he is doing it at all.

I was actaully thinking in getting a rgb snes mini for my framemister I bought. I was watching a bid hoping to score it fell asleep woke up went to work came back and analogue announced the super nt. LOL. SO it's a win win. I guess Im lucky I was exhausted and fell asleep. Just hope the super analogue is in equal level or grater then a rgb snes mini.

Edited December 15, 2017 by Deltax5

[Andromeda Stardust]

I Just hope the super analogue is in equal level or grater then a rgb snes mini.

It will be night and day. Even my AV Famicom (near flawless picture on the older tube tvs) looks like ass on the hdtv, though SNES Svideo is gorgeous. Yeah one of those older 720p models that predates the death of Svideo. The newer component/composite hybrid inputs I hear suck even worse, and neary TV manufacturer uses the same shitty adc chipset for analog signal conversion.

[cfillak]

I just got the SD2SNES, just hoping a jail brake so I can actually play those games that don't work for it. Just waiting if not I have to buy some of those games I want I guess, It was said it was possible but needs lots of work to program into the fpga chip that was many years ago. wonder if it is possible to emulate the chips instead making it a hybrid for those games. I really don't know much how it works sorry. Im happy what I got I guess.

SOme of those cores I mentioned are just a dream. It would mean I don't have to have so much consoles on display to play.

Just gotta wait a month or 2 after release I guess if he decides to release it. He is probably working on it, if not for awile if he is doing it at all.

I was actaully thinking in getting a rgb snes mini for my framemister I bought. I was watching a bid hoping to score it fell asleep woke up went to work came back and analogue announced the super nt. LOL. SO it's a win win. I guess Im lucky I was exhausted and fell asleep. Just hope the super analogue is in equal level or grater then a rgb snes mini.

The SD2SNES is still a very good flash cart and it has the MSU-1 audio support, which I doubt Kevtris will implement in the jailbroken firmware for the Super NT, since that is stepping on the toes of someone else's currently available products, which he has avoided in the past. So if that's true, then the SD2SNES will be the exclusive home of the MSU-1 hacks. You're not alone in wanting every system in one box! That's what most people on this thread want. I especially am very wary of investing in any CD based systems that don't have any method of loading games from external storage.

 

As for simulating the expansion chips, I would guess the Super NT would at least be on par with the SD2SNES that is it would cover:

DSP1/1B/2/3/4

ST-010

Cx4

S-RTC

OBC-1

BS-X/Satellaview

 

As for the chips not covered by SD2SNES:

 

S-DD1: Used by just 2 games: Star Ocean and Street Fighter Alpha 2. A decompression chip that has been reverse engineered resulting in an uncompressed ROM hack for Star Ocean that can play on SD2SNES. I'm not sure if there's a similar hack for Street Fighter Alpha 2. Whether this is supported or not is probably not that important because of the ROM hacks.

 

SPC7110: Another decompression chip used in 3 games: Far East of Eden Zero, Momotaru Dentetsu Happy, and Super Power League 4. I'm not aware of any ROM hacks for these games that bypass the compression. I'm not sure how complicated the chip is, I'll let others chime in on the feasibility of implementation.

 

ST-011: Used for just one game: Hayazashi Nidan Morita Shogi, used for opponent AI. It seems similar to ST-010, so it may be fair to assume it would be implemented.

 

ST-018: Another chip used for AI in just one game: Hayazashi Nidan Morita Shogi 2. It is a 21.47 MHz 32-bit ARM processor, which is insane, and probably out of the question.

 

Now, the important ones.

 

SA-1: Used in 33 games according to Wikipedia, including many favorites like Kirby Super Star and Super Mario RPG. Apparently this chip is similar to the SNES CPU, so I imagine this would be one of the more difficult chips to implement. We don't know if it will fit on the FPGA alongside the whole SNES implementation. If I had to choose between getting SA-1 and SuperFX i'd choose SA-1

 

SuperFX1-2: Used in 9 games including Star Fox 2. I'm not sure if this would be more or less complicated to implement than SA-1. In my opinion Yoshi's Island is the only worthwhile game in the bunch.

 

Keep in mind that all of these chips wouldn't have to be loaded onto the same core. There would be an SA-1 core and a SuperFX core.

[Tusecsy]

Is there any hints at all if the super nt will be jailbraked. If the careter of the jailbrake is here wonder if you can give us hints?

If it does my guess the genesis will be in there since it came out the same era.

Hoping for turbo graphics(pc engine), gbc, gba, maybe sega cd and pc engine cd if they can fit it in there and the older cores from the anoluge nt mini (but that is asking a bit much since it may be a selling point)

 

I hope someone decides to make a fpga that is stricly for Arcade cores. I guess they could make it a neo geo system then add a jail brake for other systems. making it strong enough to play mvc 2 games and down would be awesome (I know it's asking a bit much but were dealing with a market where one game can be 3 grand, make it happen even if the price is a bit high.) . It will be awesome cause custom arcade cabinets, pinball machine, ect are popular and have to deal with mame computers or ageing jamma connector boards.

 

It'll have at least the NT Mini cores soon after launch, and pretty much a guaranteed genesis and pc engine/pc engine cd core at some point (first few months, maybe sooner). beyond that is anyones guess. gameboy color is part of the nt mini suite so it'll be in there. gba is too powerful for the fpga (i believe but could be wrong). sega cd not sure of either. there's just a lot of short-sighted pessimists on these boards. it's obvious this will be a repeat of the nt mini. and you will never get a confirmation from analogue or kevtris, they keep this stuff under the radar for a reason. that sd card slot tells you all you need to know...

 

and for those claiming they'll buy another "mega nt" with the same guts for another 200$ just because it has a different controller adapter, you're insane. and "NT" stands for nintendo...

 

i really like the arcade fpga idea that's very cool. the next product from analogue will likely be some kind of portable though. and then in a couple years a next gen all-in-one fpga for the next gen of consoles.

Edited December 15, 2017 by Tusecsy

[Toth]

Check out this beauty I picked up for $10 today. I've been looking for a 13 inch model forever since it will fit on my desk better and still has component input. (I do have a couple small PVM monitors but there is just something about a Sony Trinitron consumer TV I can't resist )

 

Edited December 15, 2017 by Toth

[Schizophretard]

and for those claiming they'll buy another "mega nt" with the same guts for another 200$ just because it has a different controller adapter, you're insane.

 

It would also accept Genesis cartridges at the very least and potentially other SEGA systems and/or accessories. There also might not just be a buy another crowd but people who would buy the Mega Nt instead of the Super Nt.

[Pixelboy]

It would also accept Genesis cartridges at the very least and potentially other SEGA systems and/or accessories. There also might not just be a buy another crowd but people who would buy the Mega Nt instead of the Super Nt.

Indeed. The Genesis controller is pretty iconic all by itself, so in addition to having a proper Genesis cartridge port, I can imagine Analogue seeking an arrangement with 8Bitdo to create a wireless Genesis-like controller for the Mega NT. There are plenty of people with Genesis/MegaDrive cart collections out there, and those will likely want to purchase the Mega NT instead of the Super NT.

[Schizophretard]

Indeed. The Genesis controller is pretty iconic all by itself, so in addition to having a proper Genesis cartridge port, I can imagine Analogue seeking an arrangement with 8Bitdo to create a wireless Genesis-like controller for the Mega NT. There are plenty of people with Genesis/MegaDrive cart collections out there, and those will likely want to purchase the Mega NT instead of the Super NT.

 

Especially if Master System and Game Gear carts are supported too.

[Wolf_]

Dude, Kevtris man, I'm loving this menu. Simple, intuitive, packed with all the features I could think of asking for, and it doesn't get in the way. 10/10 menu, I hope it works on all the cores.

[Kismet]

https://youtu.be/PUwl2h_6Skc?t=14

 

Hmm

 

The monitor (or capture card) used shows 480p60, 720p60, 1080p60, but no 240p or 2160p (4K), kevtris already said there wouldn't be 4K. (4K would allow for a 9x integer scale)

What does the "disable interpolation" do on the scalers submenu? does that have something to do with the interlaced shadows?

[Beer Monkey]

What does the "disable interpolation" do on the scalers submenu? does that have something to do with the interlaced shadows?

I'm guessing it does nearest neighbor scaling?

[cacophony]

They also posted the boot sequence:

 

[cfillak]

 

Dude, Kevtris man, I'm loving this menu. Simple, intuitive, packed with all the features I could think of asking for, and it doesn't get in the way. 10/10 menu, I hope it works on all the cores.

The menu wasn't designed by Kevtris, it was Phil Fish, as the video says in the title.

[cfillak]

 

It would also accept Genesis cartridges at the very least and potentially other SEGA systems and/or accessories. There also might not just be a buy another crowd but people who would buy the Mega Nt instead of the Super Nt.

Yeah, not everyone is like the people on this thread. Someone who grew up with only a Genesis who has a big library of carts and accessories is not going to buy something advertised as a SNES to (maybe) use a cartridge adapter but probably just play Genesis ROMs. In my opinion the Mega NT would be for a whole other market of people who would never buy the Super NT, not for people who would buy both (though I would).

[bikerspade]

Does anybody else's NT Mini menu say "NTSC Composite/S-vid" even when using Component?

Yes, mine does.

[Tusecsy]

Yeah, not everyone is like the people on this thread. Someone who grew up with only a Genesis who has a big library of carts and accessories is not going to buy something advertised as a SNES to (maybe) use a cartridge adapter but probably just play Genesis ROMs. In my opinion the Mega NT would be for a whole other market of people who would never buy the Super NT, not for people who would buy both (though I would).

 

Ummmm..but the super nt will support genesis so whats the point of another system that does the same thing? there are these things called roms...and cartridge adapters...