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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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Maybe a trusted member of the community should immediately register it, since k seems busy with core updates and all that. Then when the time comes it can be transfered back to him for a dollar.

No need, by using he can subsequently apply for ® in the retro-console category/domain afaik and he will have enough evidence to support his claim to be able to boot out an undesired squatter. This thread would be evidence for example.

 

So please nobody "help", let kevtris decide on his own but then again I am no lawyer.

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The A.W.E.S.O.M.E. story of the Core Store so far..........

 

Straight from the first post it seems this would be the candidate list of supported cores:

 

* Sega Master System

* Game Gear

* Colecovision

* NES/Famicom

* Atari 2600

* Atari 7800

* Intellivision

* Odyssey^2

* Adventure Vision

* Supervision

* RCA Studio 2

* Fairchild Channel F

* Videobrain

* Arcadia 2001

* Creativision

* Gameboy

* Gameboy Color (not 100% yet, still debugging. runs 99% of games so far)

 

Bonus:

* SG-1000

* Gamate

* Gameking

 

Unknown if they can make it:

* PCE/TG16

* SuperGrafx (?)

* Megadrive (?)

 

Out of reach for Nt mini (confirmed?):

* SNES

* NeoGeo

 

Promised/rumored portables:

* Game.com

* Atari Lynx

* Mega Duck/Cougar Boy

* NeoGeo Pocket Color

* Wonderswan Color

 

(last 2 hopefully also the B&W variant)

 

 

Missing in action/unaccounted/undisclosed/don't know ..... but 8 bits:

* Astrocade

* 1292 APVS \ VC 4000

* APF Imagination Machine

* Bandai Super Vision 8000

* Epoch Cassette Vision

* Vectrex (it'd be cool if it can pilot an oscilloscope as monitor)

* Atari 5200

* Casio PV-1000

* Gakken Compact Vision

* Epoch Super Cassette Vision

* Daewoo Zemmix (maybe just the MSX1 variant)

* Atari XEGS (well, you know ... icon_smile.gif )

* Commodore 64 GS

* Amstrad GX4000

 

Other 16bits cart based:

* Super A'Can

 

NOTE: My copying the usage of the sign after Core Store is not random, but to lend some help if kevtris decides to actually go for ® (that is registered) if he sees it fit for his needs. is weaker to defend but the more accept it the merrier!!

 

Add Virtual Boy with 3D Glasses support to the Hope n Dreams list lol

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Made a video showing the NT mini static in Solstice. It sounds perfectly fine ingame at first, and I'm not exactly sure what causes the static to start. You can hear it pretty clearly and it gets worse the more you play, though.

 

 

<video link removed>

I fixed this problem. It's perfectly clean now. Also, I removed the DC offset from the audio, so that should fix the TVs and monitors with the "silent audio" problem. Working on the scaler wiggle issue (where turning it on/off will cause the screen image to move in 1 of several positions) now, and a few other little improvements. I will probably release an update when these things are done, but I will also look at the n163 problem too and any other little things first.

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Guess it shows how little I care about portable/handheld gaming .... anyhow I'll amend the post!

 

EDIT: Post amended with the 5 suggested portables/handhelds, to be fair Wondersan and NGPC are 16bits which in general so far have not appeared at all on the Nt Mini (ok ok the Intellivision may appear shortly). And yes the NEC D777C in the Epoch Cassette Vision is technically a 12bits microcontroller.

 

For some reason I'm more excited by the handheld system cores than the obscure 8-bit home consoles. Alot of the home consoles can be RGB modded or at least put through an upscaler to be made compatible with modern displays. Kevtris is really rescuing alot of these handheld consoles from obscurity by freeing them from their crappy screens. Alot of these systems don't even really have bespoke emulators outside of MAME/MESS, and even then the implementations are sometimes incomplete. I think I just have some weirdo nostalgia for handhelds because the Gameboy was the first game system I ever played, and these weird systems like Watara Supervision and Gamate are like a bizarro alternate universe version of my childhood.

 

IIRC, Kevtris said something about the WonderSwan being "scary" to implement, because it's in the x86 family.

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I got the Famicom network controller and a Famicom keyboard this week. Can't wait to test them out if/when they are implemented.

 

Watched the video you put up kevtris on your boards and I'm really excited to start plugging other carts into my mini.

Think kevtris added the Famicom network controller on the todo-list. Perfect for the coleco and intv. Got one myself. Really looking forward to that Intellivision core, it's something with the first console ever experienced. :)

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I fixed this problem. It's perfectly clean now. Also, I removed the DC offset from the audio, so that should fix the TVs and monitors with the "silent audio" problem. Working on the scaler wiggle issue (where turning it on/off will cause the screen image to move in 1 of several positions) now, and a few other little improvements. I will probably release an update when these things are done, but I will also look at the n163 problem too and any other little things first.

Thanks! You're awesome :D

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Kevtris, can you please add support for the ColecoVision MegaCart? Thse carts use bankswitching to allow rom sizes of 64kb and greater. The Collectorvision port of Mario Bros. needs this in order to run.

 

EDIT: Someone requested a way to swap the buttons in the game Alex Kidd for the Sega Master System. There are patches for the game's rom that do this. No FPGA update needed.

Edited by pcfreak324
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Has anyone been using CopyNES? I've been having good luck with the few licensed games that I wanted to dump. However I do have some homebrews that use different boards and mappers. I'm looking to see if anyone has a CopyNES plugin for UNROM512. The games uses mapper 30. I've got a game that I can't get to work. I haven't had any luck with what I've found on Google. This is for my personal use and isn't something I'm going to post all over the internet. I just want to save some of my nicer cartridges from wear and tear.

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it doesn't but it could. I didn't want to implement stuff like that if it'd step on peoples' toes if they are trying to sell hardware or something. If it's just 32K + AY-3-8910 I could add it in an hour or two. I have the AY-3-8910 done (it's on the gamate and intv) so dropping it in and adding more RAM would be super easy.

 

Part of the problem I have on 'fan created' hardware like this is sometimes finding documentation can be very difficult. It'll be buried in some 50 page thread (seems familiar, eh? hehe) making it hard to find. I had this problem with 2600 homebrew mappers and games. Just finding the information was difficult. I had someone ask me what mapper a 2600 homebrew was, but after reading the entire thread I still didn't know. It had absolutely no mapper information listed anywhere so I still am at a loss as to what mapper it is. That game was "zippy the porcupine". 2600 games don't have headers, so I guess you're supposed to determine the mapper by osmosis.

 

If there's a decent spec for fan hardware people want me to add, I am more than happy to add it! Provided it's not insane. (i.e. YM2151 is kind of insane right now, which I think is on that 7800 expansion doodad). But extra RAM and AY-3-8910, we got dis.

 

Regarding adding Super Game Module support, the information needed to access the added 32KB of RAM is here : http://atariage.com/forums/topic/203851-super-game-module-technical-forum/?p=2615116

 

They state that the memory mapping for the 32KB is the same as the Coleco Adam, so they have no cause to complain if you emulate it.

 

And the AY-3-8910's is accessed as explained here : http://atariage.com/forums/topic/203851-super-game-module-technical-forum/?p=2623556

 

Same forum topic. but these individual posts have been identified to save time.

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For those that want to use VGA, I tested the NT Mini with an HDMI to VGA adapter and it works great!

 

For Colecovision, the CV ROM Update Project on this forum has been a more reliable set than smokemonster's.

  • Choplifter (CRC32: E7A1FF9F) graphics corruption happens after you play it for a bit, or maybe immediately. Use 030E0D48 instead.
  • Slither hack (CRC32: 92624CFF) to play with the joystick instead of the roller controller. I was playing level 3 difficulty, and on phase 4 when there's a ton of enemies, half of them are corrupt or missing parts of their bodies, as you eliminate through them the graphics get better. Maybe the hack was applied to a bad dump?
  • Montezuma's Revenge (CRC32: 0BD9D073), locks up when you enter certain rooms. It's very random, so I can't get it to repeat even if I take the same path, but I suspect that CED0D16E is a better dump.

The smokemonster set also doesn't even apply Atari 7800 patches needed from kevtris' readme.

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Regarding adding Super Game Module support, the information needed to access the added 32KB of RAM is here : http://atariage.com/forums/topic/203851-super-game-module-technical-forum/?p=2615116

 

They state that the memory mapping for the 32KB is the same as the Coleco Adam, so they have no cause to complain if you emulate it.

 

And the AY-3-8910's is accessed as explained here : http://atariage.com/forums/topic/203851-super-game-module-technical-forum/?p=2623556

 

Same forum topic. but these individual posts have been identified to save time.

 

Yes, I will add this. Are there any released homebrew ROMs I can test it with? I don't have time to poke around looking for them since they can be notoriously difficult to track down in the various posts over the last couple years.

 

Kevtris, can you please add support for the ColecoVision MegaCart? Thse carts use bankswitching to allow rom sizes of 64kb and greater. The Collectorvision port of Mario Bros. needs this in order to run.

 

EDIT: Someone requested a way to swap the buttons in the game Alex Kidd for the Sega Master System. There are patches for the game's rom that do this. No FPGA update needed.

 

I will add this too, but again are there homebrew roms available I can use for testing?

 

Think kevtris added the Famicom network controller on the todo-list. Perfect for the coleco and intv. Got one myself. Really looking forward to that Intellivision core, it's something with the first console ever experienced. :)

 

I am adding that now, so it should be in there on the next release.

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Kevtris, first off thanks for all the great work, really enjoying playing all these old consoles on the Mini. I am currently having an issue that I was hoping either yourself or someone on the forum could help with. When I load either of the SMS, GG or Colecovision cores while using RGB on my BVM via the Retro Gaming Cables scart, I am getting the output below. I actually also had this had this happen on my original SMS as well. It would work over RF, but if using RGB via scart (which I purchased from Retro Console Accessories on eBay) I would get the same thing. I had contacted her about it but she didn't have any ideas and I just figured there was perhaps an issue with my system. However, now that this is also happening on the Mini I assume it's an issue with the way the cables are wired. Was wondering if anyone else was having this issue or had any ideas on what may be causing it? I won't be able to fashion a cable myself, but perhaps I can have either of the two mentioned above create something for me. I should also note that I don't have these issues over Composite or HDMI.

 

I also had an issue with Mega Man Xtreme on the GBC core. During the intro for instance, the image of Mega Man will be correct for a split second, and then all the colors in his face are gone. Also when you get into the game, if you bring up your menu and then go back to gameplay, all of the background information is lost and you only see your character. I'm using the Smokemonster roms, but maybe I'll try downloading another set to test.

 

Also, I saw in previous comments a lot of people were having issues finding roms and BIOS for Gamate and Game King. I too cannot seem to find these (was able to track down a Gamate BIOS but that's it), so if anyone here would be willing to help with that it would be greatly appreciated and you could PM me directly if you'd like.

 

Thanks again for everything Kevtris. Looking forward to the next firmware so I can use this Famicom Network controller I bought :)

 

Unrelated: I too had an issue with the power supply being really noisy. Even just having it plugged into the wall it was making noise. Analogue provided a replacement power supply (of another make) that works fine, so I'm not sure why they weren't helpful with some other posters here. Might wanna go back to them and tell them to fix their own damn problem!

 

azf1g3.jpg

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For those that want to use VGA, I tested the NT Mini with an HDMI to VGA adapter and it works great!

 

For Colecovision, the CV ROM Update Project on this forum has been a more reliable set than smokemonster's.

  • Choplifter (CRC32: E7A1FF9F) graphics corruption happens after you play it for a bit, or maybe immediately. Use 030E0D48 instead.
  • Slither hack (CRC32: 92624CFF) to play with the joystick instead of the roller controller. I was playing level 3 difficulty, and on phase 4 when there's a ton of enemies, half of them are corrupt or missing parts of their bodies, as you eliminate through them the graphics get better. Maybe the hack was applied to a bad dump?
  • Montezuma's Revenge (CRC32: 0BD9D073), locks up when you enter certain rooms. It's very random, so I can't get it to repeat even if I take the same path, but I suspect that CED0D16E is a better dump.

The smokemonster set also doesn't even apply Atari 7800 patches needed from kevtris' readme.

The thing about smokemonster's set is that he goes through and tests and organizes each rom individually and looks up popular fan hacks and homebrews and tries to eliminate all needless duplicates. Kevtris releasing a core a week makes keeping up with them an insane workload because each system is hundreds or thousands of roms. Expect the newest sets to have some growing pains but they will get updated quickly, just not at the insane pace Kevtris works at. Honestly he must never sleep.

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I have finished up a big update to the firmware today! There's a lot of little fixes and changes. Here's a list:

 

* Fixed DC offset on the audio, causing certain monitors to produce no sound ever, or until a game was started and certain SFX played, etc.
* Fixed the crackling/static issue that appears on games such as solstice.
* Minor fix to audio scaler that probably wasn't audible, but was wrong anyways.
* Fixed the "wigglin' scalers" issue. This was a debug I left in. oops.
* Moved mapper 124 on the NES core to the second NES core due to running out of room.
* Added ability to change highlight text colour in the menus. I cannot add it to NES composite s/vid due to space (but it works on other cores).
* Added "low lag" controller reading to all cores. (the controller is polled right before vblank to minimize lag)
* Rebuilt all cores to implement that above fixes/changes.
* Added Famicom Network HVC-051 controller to Coleco core.
* Added Famicom Network HVC-051 controller to Arcadia 2001 core.

There's a new menu entry in the video menu to set the highlight colour now to 1 of 7 different values if you so choose. It defaults to green.

 

You can get it here:

 

http://blog.kevtris.org/blogfiles/ntm_firmware_verJB1.8.zip

 

Enjoy!

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I have finished up a big update to the firmware today! There's a lot of little fixes and changes. Here's a list:

 

* Fixed DC offset on the audio, causing certain monitors to produce no sound ever, or until a game was started and certain SFX played, etc.

* Fixed the crackling/static issue that appears on games such as solstice.

* Minor fix to audio scaler that probably wasn't audible, but was wrong anyways.

* Fixed the "wigglin' scalers" issue. This was a debug I left in. oops.

* Moved mapper 124 on the NES core to the second NES core due to running out of room.

* Added ability to change highlight text colour in the menus. I cannot add it to NES composite s/vid due to space (but it works on other cores).

* Added "low lag" controller reading to all cores. (the controller is polled right before vblank to minimize lag)

* Rebuilt all cores to implement that above fixes/changes.

* Added Famicom Network HVC-051 controller to Coleco core.

* Added Famicom Network HVC-051 controller to Arcadia 2001 core.

 

There's a new menu entry in the video menu to set the highlight colour now to 1 of 7 different values if you so choose. It defaults to green.

 

You can get it here:

 

http://blog.kevtris.org/blogfiles/ntm_firmware_verJB1.8.zip

 

Enjoy!

 

 

Honestly he must never sleep.

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I have finished up a big update to the firmware today! There's a lot of little fixes and changes. Here's a list:

 

* Fixed DC offset on the audio, causing certain monitors to produce no sound ever, or until a game was started and certain SFX played, etc.

* Fixed the crackling/static issue that appears on games such as solstice.

* Minor fix to audio scaler that probably wasn't audible, but was wrong anyways.

* Fixed the "wigglin' scalers" issue. This was a debug I left in. oops.

* Moved mapper 124 on the NES core to the second NES core due to running out of room.

* Added ability to change highlight text colour in the menus. I cannot add it to NES composite s/vid due to space (but it works on other cores).

* Added "low lag" controller reading to all cores. (the controller is polled right before vblank to minimize lag)

* Rebuilt all cores to implement that above fixes/changes.

* Added Famicom Network HVC-051 controller to Coleco core.

* Added Famicom Network HVC-051 controller to Arcadia 2001 core.

 

There's a new menu entry in the video menu to set the highlight colour now to 1 of 7 different values if you so choose. It defaults to green.

 

You can get it here:

 

http://blog.kevtris.org/blogfiles/ntm_firmware_verJB1.8.zip

 

Enjoy!

I know it's not addressed in your update, but I'm still having serious issues with my FDS not loading disks/freezing during gameplay.

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The thing about smokemonster's set is that he goes through and tests and organizes each rom individually and looks up popular fan hacks and homebrews and tries to eliminate all needless duplicates. Kevtris releasing a core a week makes keeping up with them an insane workload because each system is hundreds or thousands of roms. Expect the newest sets to have some growing pains but they will get updated quickly, just not at the insane pace Kevtris works at. Honestly he must never sleep.

 

I just want to warn those who trust it as an authority for any game to properly work on the Analogue NT Mini, it may not. Don't blame kevtris for smokemonster's romset.

 

Smokemonster sets are labeled for and targeted towards Analogue NT Mini and other flash cart users, but it's not vetted for them. Even for other flash carts, there are a lot of basic mistakes like Tetris for Gameboy isn't in the "USA R-Z" but buried in the "Revisions" folder. It does have extras I've not found in other sets... and it's that weird mixture of romsets that if you can even find a game in its proper place, the dumps won't necessarily work properly on any flash cart (which is the whole point, right?). I do appreciate their intention, but they probably need crowdsourced help to get it done properly and thoroughly.

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