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FPGA Based Videogame System


kevtris

Interest in an FPGA Videogame System  

682 members have voted

  1. 1. I would pay....

  2. 2. I Would Like Support for...

  3. 3. Games Should Run From...

    • SD Card / USB Memory Sticks
    • Original Cartridges
    • Hopes and Dreams
  4. 4. The Video Inteface Should be...


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Randomly discovered a few things in the shop tonight.

 

1) NTT Data controller doesn't work with SD2SNES.

2) It also doesn't work with Super Game Boy 2.

 

They must both be checking Controller ID. I've heard a NES controller works with SMB and SMB2 on the All-Stars cartridge, was thinking of trying to do the same with Gameboy games. Guess that's not happening.

 

3) This cheap $10 HDMI->RGBHV adapter that I already own passes 240p 60.09hz. I ran a real SNES through an OSSC in passthru mode then through the adapter into my JVC broadcast monitor with a VGA to 5BNC cable. It seems like it'll probably pass anything that doesn't exceed its bandwidth limit.

 

How does this relate to the Super NT? It doesn't. But it's interesting. I figure there's enough crazy gamers who are A/V nuts in here that it might come in handy.

 

aetvAuy.jpg

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it's still in there, just turn it on. it's under "menu options" and is "menu bounce"

Huh, weird. Doesn't seem to show for me. The only toggle under Menu Options is Dim.

Does it show up for everyone else? I will try and reinstall the latest firmware tomorrow evening. Forgot my SD card adapter at work.

 

No worries, though. Everything else I used is there and I've gotten used to the default.

Edited by romevi
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Randomly discovered a few things in the shop tonight.

 

1) NTT Data controller doesn't work with SD2SNES.

2) It also doesn't work with Super Game Boy 2.

 

They must both be checking Controller ID. I've heard a NES controller works with SMB and SMB2 on the All-Stars cartridge, was thinking of trying to do the same with Gameboy games. Guess that's not happening.

 

3) This cheap $10 HDMI->RGBHV adapter that I already own passes 240p 60.09hz. I ran a real SNES through an OSSC in passthru mode then through the adapter into my JVC broadcast monitor with a VGA to 5BNC cable. It seems like it'll probably pass anything that doesn't exceed its bandwidth limit.

 

How does this relate to the Super NT? It doesn't. But it's interesting. I figure there's enough crazy gamers who are A/V nuts in here that it might come in handy.

 

aetvAuy.jpg

Hmm. I wonder if I can use this with my vga to bnc rgbhv to go from Super NT to PVM?

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Randomly discovered a few things in the shop tonight.

 

1) NTT Data controller doesn't work with SD2SNES.

2) It also doesn't work with Super Game Boy 2.

 

They must both be checking Controller ID. I've heard a NES controller works with SMB and SMB2 on the All-Stars cartridge, was thinking of trying to do the same with Gameboy games. Guess that's not happening.

 

3) This cheap $10 HDMI->RGBHV adapter that I already own passes 240p 60.09hz. I ran a real SNES through an OSSC in passthru mode then through the adapter into my JVC broadcast monitor with a VGA to 5BNC cable. It seems like it'll probably pass anything that doesn't exceed its bandwidth limit.

 

How does this relate to the Super NT? It doesn't. But it's interesting. I figure there's enough crazy gamers who are A/V nuts in here that it might come in handy.

 

aetvAuy.jpg

One could try the following settings on their Super NT: outputting 480p with 50% scanlines, vertical interpolation disabled, 512 pixel width (2x) and horizontal interpolation on for a softer look. If the picture is too narrow, try expanding to 640 width (2.5 pixels) especially on a 4:3 monitor. That would likely yield the closest approximation to your screengrab.

 

Or get an hdmi to vga adapter and hook up some speakers and an old 31khz compatible vga monitor for ultimate lag free retro experience. I wish I hadn't gotten rid of my old vga monitor. It would probably have looked sweet in this mode.

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attachicon.gifpolymega.png

 

There you have it.

 

The Super Nt is apparently a nice interim option, while everyone eagerly awaits the ultimate clone console: Polymega ! :dunce:

 

(edit: original tweet: https://twitter.com/polymegaHQ/status/968326594430455809 )

This thing has to be snake oil vaporware right? I mean they've got a nice website and the renders look cool and everything, but I have no idea what is supposed to be meant by "Hybrid Emulation". A Linux OS running an emulator plus an FPGA doing I/O from the carts/controllers? They also keep saying that they're not using any open source emulators or frontends. So we're supposed to believe that they wrote cycle-accurate emulators for all of the systems they say the system will support in-house? I could see why someone might want something like this if the emulation is good and they wanted to simplify their streaming setup or something, but I'll be shocked if this thing ever comes out or comes out without some fundamental compromise that makes it not worth it.

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If your PVM does 480p you should be fine. I'll go test it now.

 

Nope, it didn't work. FYI my monitor is a DT-V1710CG. Handles everything from 240p to 1080p/24.

 

I'm guessing the Super NT doesn't like something about the EDID or lack thereof (?) from the adapter. I had set it on 480p before moving it from the TV to the CRT.

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Can you provide more info on what gets changed with the timing when it's enabled?

With it off, the system outputs absolutely "perfect" cartridge bus timing, but two things I know of exploit race conditions to work at all. Super powerpak and game genie. They were designed as if the SNES bus worked like the NES bus (which it does not). The /RD and /WR pulses are delayed around 3ns from the CPU clock. Ideally both edges should happen at the same time, and they do on the super nt. But due to the way the CPU is made, there's very slight timing discrepancies. This adds up to around 3ns of delay. It appears that propagation delays in the CPU chip itself cause this.

 

3ns is around a 340MHz edge rate! Pretty fast for a "slow" system running at 3.58MHz maximum CPU rate. Anyways, super powerpak and game genie need that 3ns to latch data. In fact the game genie can be hacked to work properly and not require this. The GG fails on various real systems due to this timing thing. The super powerpak apparently can as well but I didn't have this problem.

 

The "launch system timing" delays /RD and /WR 6ns which is the smallest step I can delay on the FPGA. The super powerpak uses the B bus /wr and /rd signals, which were not delayed so I delay them now too with the timing thing. The spp is the first cartridge I know of (other than my PPU/APU test cart) that uses the B bus at all.

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attachicon.gifpolymega.png

 

There you have it.

 

The Super Nt is apparently a nice interim option, while everyone eagerly awaits the ultimate clone console: Polymega ! :dunce:

 

(edit: original tweet: https://twitter.com/polymegaHQ/status/968326594430455809 )

haha, I didn't see that. I still am curious how they are going to get around the whole BIOS ROM problem (among the 2000 other issues they will have). It's pretty hard to run CD based systems without the BIOS ROMs. I guess they could take a stab at rewriting one but it's a big job and compatibility will be suspect. It sounds more and more their "hybrid emulation" is basically a retron 5, where it uses a simple CPLD/FPGA to read the carts and stuff and interfaces it to an android system running emulators.

 

There's zero way to get a software emulator to actually run a cartridge without dumping it IMO. They could theoretically run a CPU emulator, but it cannot do anything else, because running the cart bus will take all available CPU cycles, and it cannot be sped up (because the cartridge can only be read at the "usual' rate and it cannot be sped up to help do bulk processing).

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haha, I didn't see that. I still am curious how they are going to get around the whole BIOS ROM problem (among the 2000 other issues they will have). It's pretty hard to run CD based systems without the BIOS ROMs. I guess they could take a stab at rewriting one but it's a big job and compatibility will be suspect. It sounds more and more their "hybrid emulation" is basically a retron 5, where it uses a simple CPLD/FPGA to read the carts and stuff and interfaces it to an android system running emulators.

 

There's zero way to get a software emulator to actually run a cartridge without dumping it IMO. They could theoretically run a CPU emulator, but it cannot do anything else, because running the cart bus will take all available CPU cycles, and it cannot be sped up (because the cartridge can only be read at the "usual' rate and it cannot be sped up to help do bulk processing).

http://thegww.com/q-a-the-polymega-with-bryan-bernal/

 

This interview seems to explain it a bit. They claim it won't be capable of dumping SNES enhancement chip games, but will use the actual SuperFX/SA-1 hardware on the cart, which seems... unlikely.

Edited by cfillak
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With it off, the system outputs absolutely "perfect" cartridge bus timing, but two things I know of exploit race conditions to work at all. Super powerpak and game genie. They were designed as if the SNES bus worked like the NES bus (which it does not). The /RD and /WR pulses are delayed around 3ns from the CPU clock. Ideally both edges should happen at the same time, and they do on the super nt. But due to the way the CPU is made, there's very slight timing discrepancies. This adds up to around 3ns of delay. It appears that propagation delays in the CPU chip itself cause this.

 

3ns is around a 340MHz edge rate! Pretty fast for a "slow" system running at 3.58MHz maximum CPU rate. Anyways, super powerpak and game genie need that 3ns to latch data. In fact the game genie can be hacked to work properly and not require this. The GG fails on various real systems due to this timing thing. The super powerpak apparently can as well but I didn't have this problem.

 

The "launch system timing" delays /RD and /WR 6ns which is the smallest step I can delay on the FPGA. The super powerpak uses the B bus /wr and /rd signals, which were not delayed so I delay them now too with the timing thing. The spp is the first cartridge I know of (other than my PPU/APU test cart) that uses the B bus at all.

Cool, thanks for the explanation. So super duper fast modern chips may not interface well with it on. I have a Genie thst I plan on using so i'll keep it in. I learned the hard way that you can stack too many Game Genies on the NES and cause major corruption when the propigation delay exceeds a certain length.

 

Brian / Bunnyboy designed the powerpak interfaces almost the same so no surprise he based it off of nes hardware knowledge.

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http://thegww.com/q-a-the-polymega-with-bryan-bernal/

 

This interview seems to explain it a bit. They claim it won't be capable of dumping SNES enhancement chip games, but will use the actual SuperFX/SA-1 hardware on the cart, which seems... unlikely.

Yeah I don't buy it. If they can't dump it, they can't run it. SA-1 and SDD1 games require a working lockout chip in order to get anything out of the cartridge. Without this, the games can't be dumped and won't run no matter what. It all sounds like a bunch of smoke and mirrors and "trust us". Like the ataribox, show us the working prototype that isn't just a dev board running open source emulators. Sure seems to be a lot of that lately (announce videogame system, never produce concrete evidence it exists/works, keep pumping it up, then go radio silent). Polymega/retroblo(x), Ataribox, Lythium, and earlier Coleco Chameleon/RVGS. Did I miss any? It's hard to keep up.

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This thing has to be snake oil vaporware right? I mean they've got a nice website and the renders look cool and everything, but I have no idea what is supposed to be meant by "Hybrid Emulation". A Linux OS running an emulator plus an FPGA doing I/O from the carts/controllers? They also keep saying that they're not using any open source emulators or frontends. So we're supposed to believe that they wrote cycle-accurate emulators for all of the systems they say the system will support in-house? I could see why someone might want something like this if the emulation is good and they wanted to simplify their streaming setup or something, but I'll be shocked if this thing ever comes out or comes out without some fundamental compromise that makes it not worth it.

I remember reading that the original project was to make an FPGA Turbo-Grafx 16/PC-Engine, but then they decided to go for the "hybrid emulation" multi console route. Really wished they would have just made that FPGA TG-16 to be honest, as I really don't know if Analogue will consider doing that console. I just question how long they have been working on these supposed in house emulators. I mean thats a ton of work if what they are saying is true. Anyways, if they could somehow bring the input lag lower than that garbage Hyperkin Retron 5 system I think it will do really well if it actually gets released.

 

 

Edited by SegaSnatcher
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I have the same set-up and enabling cartridge audio cleared it up. On some games (ex. Yoshi island) sound played through the soundbar would cut in/out but when played only through the tv it was fine. After turning on cartridge audio in the settings it plays perfectly through the soundbar.

 

Cartridge audio really shouldn't affect things unless you're playing an MSU-1 game or a Super Gameboy. It certainly isn't the problem, though it may offer a clue as to what the real problem is. Because I have the same problem with the NT Mini as well.

Edited by DarkkOne
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One thing that I dont understand regarding Super NT and firmware.

 

If the hardware is replicated and reveresed engineered from an actual SNES, why does it have quirks with strange game like monopoly and so on?

 

If the games programmed wierd but still worked, why doesnt it work on the Super NT exactly like it would on the SNES?

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One thing that I dont understand regarding Super NT and firmware.

 

If the hardware is replicated and reveresed engineered from an actual SNES, why does it have quirks with strange game like monopoly and so on?

 

If the games programmed wierd but still worked, why doesnt it work on the Super NT exactly like it would on the SNES?

Super NT isn't created from a schematic of the SNES chips. They weren't actually decapped and copied transistor by transistor. Rather, as I understand it, Kevtris probed the SNES in action to see what the chips DO, and wrote his own circuits in FPGA to do that. So the work in-progress is figuring out exactly what the SNES hardware does, what quirks it has, and what quirks actually matter, and making the FPGA circuits do the same things.

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Polymega is a piece of crap. It will take advantage on people that doesnt understand how it works.

 

And when people asking about updates, the first thing they mention are patent. THAT will ring a bell if any.

 

All users go "wow" on a custom made linux interface... sigh..

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I remember reading that the original project was to make an FPGA Turbo-Grafx 16/PC-Engine, but then they decided to go for the "hybrid emulation" multi console route. Really wished they would have just made that FPGA TG-16 to be honest, as I really don't know if Analogue will consider doing that console. I just question how long they have been working on these supposed in house emulators. I mean thats a ton of work if what they are saying is true. Anyways, if they could somehow bring the input lag lower than that garbage Hyperkin Retron 5 system I think it will do really well if it actually gets released.

 

 

After how long SNES took me, they have a looong road ahead doing multiple brand new emulators, if you want it to be accurate. They would need at least 1 person per system if not more to get it done in any reasonable amount of time I would think.

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One thing that I dont understand regarding Super NT and firmware.

 

If the hardware is replicated and reveresed engineered from an actual SNES, why does it have quirks with strange game like monopoly and so on?

 

If the games programmed wierd but still worked, why doesnt it work on the Super NT exactly like it would on the SNES?

 

Yeah. I've seriosly criticsed Analogue's advertising of the Super NT. The truth is, it's just a clone console. Sure thing, Kevtris worked a lot, and yes, it's a good clone console, but it's reverse engineered just like any other emulator out there. Kevtris seems to be able to iron out the bugs with time, so maybe one day everything will work flawlessly, but the whole advertisement from Analogue does imply the system is perfect, and runs exactly like a Super Nintendo does. And that is not true.

 

But just keep reporting any bugs, and eventually we might get there.

 

Edit: This polymega is so obviously just a modular retron 5... There is no way they would do anything different.

Edited by leods
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After how long SNES took me, they have a looong road ahead doing multiple brand new emulators, if you want it to be accurate. They would need at least 1 person per system if not more to get it done in any reasonable amount of time I would think.

Exactly, which is why I doubt this thing is going to come into fruition anytime soon if ever as an actual finished product. They probably could have had that FPGA TG-16 ready by now lol.

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Yeah. I've seriosly criticsed Analogue's advertising of the Super NT. The truth is, it's just a clone console. Sure thing, Kevtris worked a lot, and yes, it's a good clone console, but it's reverse engineered just like any other emulator out there. Kevtris seems to be able to iron out the bugs with time, so maybe one day everything will work flawlessly, but the whole advertisement from Analogue does imply the system is perfect, and runs exactly like a Super Nintendo does. And that is not true.

 

But just keep reporting any bugs, and eventually we might get there.

 

Edit: This polymega is so obviously just a modular retron 5... There is no way they would do anything different.

My guess is with Analogue's next project they will give Kevtris more time to work out bugs before release. Hopefully, they will give out more test units in advance next time around to help Kevtris out as well.

 

That way they can avoid any potential "false advertising" that you take issue with. If its the Genesis then I definitely want Joe from Game Sack to get a test unit. He's a hardcore Genesis guy. Also, Ace from Sega-16 would be a great person to test for audio quality/accuracy since he's the creator of the Genesis Mega Amp and he knows what a Genesis is supposed to sound like.

Edited by SegaSnatcher
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Yeah. I've seriosly criticsed Analogue's advertising of the Super NT. The truth is, it's just a clone console. Sure thing, Kevtris worked a lot, and yes, it's a good clone console, but it's reverse engineered just like any other emulator out there. Kevtris seems to be able to iron out the bugs with time, so maybe one day everything will work flawlessly, but the whole advertisement from Analogue does imply the system is perfect, and runs exactly like a Super Nintendo does. And that is not true.

 

But just keep reporting any bugs, and eventually we might get there.

 

Edit: This polymega is so obviously just a modular retron 5... There is no way they would do anything different.

 

I don't think it's fair to just call it a "good clone console" seeing that there's no other clone console that comes even remotely close in terms of accuracy.

 

We get that you don't like the Analogue marketing, but why does it bother you so much? Do you really think there are many people out there that feel taken because Analogue promised a 100% perfect recreation, but only delivered 99.99% initially, all while Kevtris works tirelessly to perfect the remaining .01%?

 

A complicated project under a tight deadline is inevitably going to have some bugs. Most companies would just leave the bugs and move on to the next product. But instead we're getting a company that is actually committed to working out even the most obscure of issues.

Edited by cacophony
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