Teardown of Gamerz Tek 8-Bit HD

[mutterminder]

In Case anybody was interested I opened up my Gamerz Tek 8-Bit HD system to see what was inside.

 

It looks like what many of us have suspected that they feed the video output of the NOAC through a video to HDMI converter. I wasn't able to find any information on the large chip on the back of the HDMI board, maybe some of you will have more luck. The HDMI video is pretty clean so, they are clearly doing some processing to it. It does look better than the typical conversion of the composite in on most modern HDTVS.

 

 

[godslabrat]

Very good to know! Would you say it's a good low-cost alternative to the AVS, with some obvious caveats?

[mutterminder]

I have mixed feelings about the Gamerz Tek 8-Bit HD.

 

Pros:

1. On the one hand it's only $50 to $60 depending on where you buy it.

2. It comes with two pretty decent controllers, a power supply, an AV cable, and an HDMI cable.

3. The HDMI signal is clean with no dot crawl.

4. It is compatible with every game I tried on on it, though I don't have many of the real problem games.

5. It does have a composite video output so you can use it with a CRT and it will work with the NES Zapper.

 

Cons:

1. On the other hand HDMI colors are very bright, reds are too red, browns are more orange. (Though one can compensate for much of this by color adjustments on your TV.)

2. Compared to the AVS, the graphics aren't quite as sharp, and there are no options such as scan lines or aspect ratio adjustments.

3. It only takes NES games, Famicom games need an adaptor.

4. It is not easily upgradeable.

 

All in all I consider it a worthwhile purchase, and a good way to future proof your NES collection. The RetroUSB AVS is awsome, but then again it costs more than three times as much.

[godslabrat]

You say there is no aspect ratio adjustment. Is it then in proper 4:3, so no adjustment is needed?

[Austin]

I am curious about the sound and the potential input lag.

[mutterminder]

You have to set your HDTV to 4:3. There was no significant input lag that I noticed, but you should turn off all image processing functions of your TV, and set it to game mode if it has one. The output is 720P, so on 1080P and higher sets there is going to be some scaling.

[godslabrat]

You have to set your HDTV to 4:3. There was no significant input lag that I noticed, but you should turn off all image processing functions of your TV, and set it to game mode if it has one. The output is 720P, so on 1080P and higher sets there is going to be some scaling.

Dealbreaker. Lots of TVs (including mine) do not allow you to manually flip to 4:3 on an HDMI signal.

[bunnyboy]

I am curious about the sound and the potential input lag.

 

 

If you like your ears to bleed, it sounds great!

Will be checking out the lag soon, camera battery needs to charge.

[Austin]

That sound is atrocious. Is that just because it's Castlevania III, or does it do that with any game?

[bunnyboy]

The audio is a known bug with certain NOAC chips. You never know if you are going to get the good one or the bad one, because these clones are just rebranded from someone else. QiShengLong makes them, sometimes with small changes in the case like power/reset button placement, then companies like Gamerz Tek put their name on it without any design or quality control. Just need to look at the Hamy12 name on the PCB to see where it comes from https://qishenglong.en.alibaba.com/product/60544465713-209433028/8_BITS_HD_FAMILY_RETRO_VIDEO_GAME_CONSOLE.html

 

Same thing on a Super Retro Trio - https://youtu.be/IhbMB0yJ4EQ?t=2m52s

 

Some of the graphics glitches are from the poor composite->HDMI conversion, like the clipped left side and the top overscan. Not sure about the single line corruption or the buggy item status display.

[bunnyboy]

Compared to the AVS so the TV processing/scaling time is removed, the composite->HDMI converter is adding another ~22ms. Slightly better than the converter in the TV and within the measurement errors of an external scaler. Likely in the range where fans will notice in MTPO but general public will not.

[zed961]

 

New version with improved sound will be available late March, first batch the factory sent us the wrong IC. Anyone who purchased the first one can return for replacement at no charge. Email service@gamerztek.com with your contact and order information.

[godslabrat]

 

New version with improved sound will be available late March, first batch the factory sent us the wrong IC. Anyone who purchased the first one can return for replacement at no charge. Email service@gamerztek.com with your contact and order information.

Are you affiliated with this company? If so, could you provide some background as to their strategy and goals?

[ApolloBoy]

The audio is still pretty off on that, yuck

[Tanooki]

It's not that bad, you would really have to know the game well to tell. The first one that audio was garbage, sounded like the old Marat iNES WIndows emulator from the later 1990s which was atrocious. I'm fairly tolerant of stuff if it's not too off, I can deal with the atgames genesis outside of the screeching pitches of murdered Sonic, but this one, if all the audio is as bad as iNES was with the CV3 example I'd play it muted only and that says a lot as I can't stand dead silence playing games.

[Austin]

The visuals are off too. Lots of background portions are completely missing, way more black spots than there is supposed to be.

[prince tomato]

could the board with the hdmi upscaler be "transplanted" to another Famicom or clone?

if the pinout of that last ribboncable between the power/av board and the main noac/pinconnector board was available this might be nice to play around with.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Bump. Now that Hyperkin is releasing an HD Retron1, do you guys think there will be any improvement?

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/260114-teardown-of-gamerz-tek-8-bit-hd/

 

Dumpulation or scaled NOAC???

[Great Hierophant]

Its a NOAC, see the answer to the question on the products Amazon.com page : https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B072PC59FQ/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B072PC59FQ&linkCode=as2&tag=thepunkeffect-20&linkId=14f7b8dc54caf8708caa67bb482038c7

 

There is a switch on the bottom to change from NTSC to PAL mode, something I have never seen in a clone before. Also, the controller ports seem to be spaced correctly for a NES Four Score or Satellite.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Its a NOAC, see the answer to the question on the products Amazon.com page : https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B072PC59FQ/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B072PC59FQ&linkCode=as2&tag=thepunkeffect-20&linkId=14f7b8dc54caf8708caa67bb482038c7

 

There is a switch on the bottom to change from NTSC to PAL mode, something I have never seen in a clone before. Also, the controller ports seem to be spaced correctly for a NES Four Score or Satellite.

Considering the fact it has a PAL switch points heavily towards emulation.

 

I'm not aware of any mass produced NOAC clones that rendered PAL video format (except Dendy, but that was a vintage Russian famiclone that used discrete chips for cpu and ppu). Furthermore, a PAL "switch" would require two system-on-a-chips if done in hardware, unless some manufacturer created a PAL compatible NOAC with an NTSC toggle.

 

Either that, or the PAL switch just runs the NTSC NOAC chip with 50Hz output from the scalar. Emulation would be very easy to toggle PAL though. I'm curious if PAL games with 60Hz compatibility bugs will play correctly.

 

I'll keep my eyes peeled for this. If it suffers the usual audio glitches and incompatibilities of NOAC chips, I will not buy. If by some freak accident it's a 720p hardware native implementation that would be amazing (also doubtful as the analog pass through points towards upscalar).

[Great Hierophant]

Considering the fact it has a PAL switch points heavily towards emulation.

 

I'm not aware of any mass produced NOAC clones that rendered PAL video format (except Dendy, but that was a vintage Russian famiclone that used discrete chips for cpu and ppu). Furthermore, a PAL "switch" would require two system-on-a-chips if done in hardware, unless some manufacturer created a PAL compatible NOAC with an NTSC toggle.

Are you accusing Hyperkin of misrepresenting its product? From the company that brought us the model of an honest product, the RetroN 5?

 

Either that, or the PAL switch just runs the NTSC NOAC chip with 50Hz output from the scalar. Emulation would be very easy to toggle PAL though. I'm curious if PAL games with 60Hz compatibility bugs will play correctly.

 

I'll keep my eyes peeled for this. If it suffers the usual audio glitches and incompatibilities of NOAC chips, I will not buy. If by some freak accident it's a 720p hardware native implementation that would be amazing (also doubtful as the analog pass through points towards upscalar).

As you and I know, PAL CPU and PPU chips differ in their internal video and audio timings from NTSC CPU and PPU chips. Dendy consoles are something of a hybrid between the NTSC and PAL chips. It takes more than a crystal change to get full compatibility, so unless Hyperkin is using emulation (they claim they are not), an FPGA (too expensive), they would need to invest in new silicon (long development time and high expense).

 

I am sure it would be interesting for someone like Kevtris or members of the NESDev community to figure out how the system switch is supposed to work if the console is not a pure emulator. The official Hong Kong Famicom had an NTSC/PAL switch which froze the PPU so it would display at 50Hz : http://www.famicomworld.com/forum/index.php?topic=4138.0

 

That kind of compatibility is much more likely within Hyperkin's budget than a native 720p NOAC. Given that it has composite AV output, it is most certainly using a standard NOAC with an HDMI upconverter chip. The Gamers-Tek clone's upscaled HD output is not as terrible as your TV would make of it. Perhaps they were able to get S-Video from NOAC, which is not nearly as difficult from clone silicon as RGB or Component Video would be.

Edited May 13, 2017 by Great Hierophant

[Andromeda Stardust]

Are you accusing Hyperkin of misrepresenting its product? From the company that brought us the model of an honest product, the RetroN 5?

 

 

As you and I know, PAL CPU and PPU chips differ in their internal video and audio timings from NTSC CPU and PPU chips. Dendy consoles are something of a hybrid between the NTSC and PAL chips. It takes more than a crystal change to get full compatibility, so unless Hyperkin is using emulation (they claim they are not), an FPGA (too expensive), they would need to invest in new silicon (long development time and high expense).

 

I am sure it would be interesting for someone like Kevtris or members of the NESDev community to figure out how the system switch is supposed to work if the console is not a pure emulator. The official Hong Kong Famicom had an NTSC/PAL switch which froze the PPU so it would display at 50Hz : http://www.famicomworld.com/forum/index.php?topic=4138.0

 

That kind of compatibility is much more likely within Hyperkin's budget than a native 720p NOAC. Given that it has composite AV output, it is most certainly using a standard NOAC with an HDMI upconverter chip. The Gamers-Tek clone's upscaled HD output is not as terrible as your TV would make of it. Perhaps they were able to get S-Video from NOAC, which is not nearly as difficult from clone silicon as RGB or Component Video would be.

All good points. I am not accusing Hyperkin of lying, but my bet is they found a kludge to get NTSC NOACs to run in PAL video output. Yes, there's a lot more going on under the hood of a PAL NES than changing a crystal or adjusting scanline counts, and I'm well aware of Dendy being a good compromise for playing Japanese games natively on PAL video. In some ways I consider it superior to the existing PAL NES, but obviously with 95% of TVs manufactured after 1990 being capable of receiving PAL signals, the need for a PAL clone in 2016 is dubious unless you have piles of old NES carts from PAL territories.

 

If they do have a brand new NOAC with high compatibility for both PAL and NTSC, added features, and bugfixes, it could be a potential Godsend to the clone market. Different revisions are better than others so it's always been a crap shoot what you get, with inconsistencies even from the same clone manufacturer. There is no reason why a new ASIC with 100% compatibility with existing NES games (and homebrew) cannot be produced, except the Asian manufacturers having a policy of "if it works, ship it" with little to no fine tuning of existing cloned designs.

 

Genesis and SNES are in a far better state of affairs considering accuracy. The 16-bit portions of my Super Retro Trio are flawless, but that matters not for NES. Kevtris could probably poop out a better ASIC design while sitting on the crapper, than 20+ years of Asian innovation and engineering has provided. And it would be lunacy to help them.

 

If you are planning on buying one, I would love for you to do a review on your webpage.

[Tanooki]

I wouldn't be surprised if what is in this Retron 1 HD isn't much the same stuff as this piece of garbage in this thread that'll end up having stupid issues that a semi-amateur solder wizard could fix up for them in short order as some links i've seen related to this project shows has been done to improve both capability and compatibility. It wouldn't be a wild stretch considering all these geniuses pull from the same pool of shady developers in the HK/China area to just use more of the same stuff, albeit tweaked to have a PAL switch, and just have the board custom fit to their system molding. That would keep the costs pretty low both in R&D and production. You can't expect much it's a $40 chinese brick.

[godslabrat]

I wouldn't be surprised if what is in this Retron 1 HD isn't much the same stuff as this piece of garbage in this thread that'll end up having stupid issues that a semi-amateur solder wizard could fix up for them in short order as some links i've seen related to this project shows has been done to improve both capability and compatibility. It wouldn't be a wild stretch considering all these geniuses pull from the same pool of shady developers in the HK/China area to just use more of the same stuff, albeit tweaked to have a PAL switch, and just have the board custom fit to their system molding. That would keep the costs pretty low both in R&D and production. You can't expect much it's a $40 chinese brick.

This. These clone makers are notorious for resisting improvement and innovation, and Hyperkin in particular is known for cutting costs in ways that affect basic quality. Let's just say if Hyperkin made condoms, I'd buy stock in baby food companies.

[Andromeda Stardust]

You can't expect much it's a $40 chinese brick.

Waste your money on four knockoff clones hoping you'll get a semi decent NOAC, or save up for an AVS!