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retro_fan

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Posts posted by retro_fan

  1. Posted

    One large problem with SNES save states from a cartridge (i.e. the game saver+) is they can't save the state of the SPC. This causes all sorts of problems with games. I am not going to support them since it's a huge pain to do so, and there's a lot of RAM to back up (VRAM, WRAM, sound ram) and there's no way to save the state of expansion chips in the carts. This makes it fairly unworkable.

     

    [...]

     

     

    Regarding save states and other features that we may miss from emulators such as more advanced shaders/filters, rewind, network gameplay, fancy menus etc. Do you think kevtris that incorporating something like an ARM processor into the Zimba 3000 design might allow for implementing some of this stuff? There are FPGA boards where an ARM processor seems to be really well integrated with the FPGA part, check out this discussion, for instance (you even have been mentioned there :P): Has anybody used Zynq for FPGAgaming?

     

    Can you see any drawbacks of such a solution?

  3. Posted

    [...] Also will legacy analog a/v signals be supported?

     

    FleaFPGA's designer reply: "Yes, there are several ways to get purely analog signals out of FleaFPGA Ohm. Among those are: R2R DAC, Sigma-delta DAC and PWM. Stated methods also require some external resistors and capacitors to be added (but very little else). Various sites on-line provide further info, here's one: http://www.fpga4fun.com/PWM_DAC.html"

  5. Posted · Edited by retro_fan

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PU7TAN40Jk

     

    "Introducing my FleaFPGA 'Ohm' Experimenter board! Flea Ohm is described as a compact, powerful yet easy-to-use FPGA development board built around a variation of the raspberry pi zero form factor. Flea Ohm is useful in applications ranging from robotics to retro gaming. Flea Ohm can operate standalone or as a co-processor 'hat' for a raspberry pi computer. I am looking to raise sufficient funds to do a modest production run of 'Ohm' boards and make these available to the wider community."

     

    It already supports Minimig and Next186 cores.

     

    Don't forget to check from to time the updates on the ZX Spectrum Next project, it's getting more and more interesting, let's hope they deliver.

    • Like 1

  8. Posted

    We definitely should watch this project:

     

    RetroArch FPGA - cores are beginning to run!

     

    I think this piece of information is related:

     

    "I'm currently working on a prototype zynq design (targeting z-turn 7020 for now) for the libretro/RetroArch project, where the PS will run the normal RetroArch application under Linux, but there will be some custom drivers to interface with the PL side, so that we can have a mixture of hardware cores (like fpganes), software cores (existing libretro-compatible game cores that will run solely on the PS) or hybrid game cores (a mixture of hard and soft IP) and let RetroArch control all of it through its usual interface." bparker06

     

    Check out the whole thread: Has anybody used Zynq for FPGAgaming?

    • Like 1

  11. Posted

    umm, the last update was 14 months ago, so I rolled out an update over a year after the last one. The device itself was designed at the end of 2014 and the start of 2015, so this is technically 2 years later.

    Wow, the time goes by so quickly! I did not want to sound like I am not happy with support or anything, that was a general piece of advice for supporting older products and not a complaint about the Hi-Def NES (I'm not a native speaker of English, so if I did not get my point through, I'm sorry :()... Anyway, all the updates so far are awesome, keep up good work Kev!

  12. Posted · Edited by retro_fan

    Maybe, but there's a lot of them out there, and I fixed all the known bugs now in this update so hopefully that will be it. I certainly can't add anything new so there shouldn't be any new bugs anyways.

    If you say so, I guess that's OK. Well, nobody's expecting that you will be working as much on your older projects as on newer ones (everyone can get bored with something, even you :P), however, just take into consideration that the situation when a developer fixes even occasional 1 or 2 bugs, years after the release, is really appreciated by the community, and it can drive the sells of new products because people appreciate such continuous (even if very small) support. Another option is releasing the source code (if you don't sell a product anymore), so that people can tweak and fix some small stuff for themselves.

  14. Posted

    Looks like Kev just worked on a new firmware release for HI-Def NES:

     

    https://www.game-tech.us/

    It's great that he did the update, I heard people were having issues. I really hope that when Kevtris will finally set up the bug-tracker the Hi-Def NES mod will be there as well (to report bugs and not to suggest new features, the FPGA is full!). Cross-reporting seems like a good idea because it looks like Kevtris' projects share codebase (at least the NES portion), and more users reporting means more fixed bugs.

  15. Posted · Edited by retro_fan

    LOL, they're using the Raspberry Pi Zero as an accelerator! :) "We added the option to add a Raspberry Pi Zero as a slave co-accelerator board, taking the Spectrum Next to a whole new level. In other words, with a Raspberry Pi Zero slotted into its place, the Spectrum Next can use the RPi memory, CPU and GPU to do its bidding. Imagine what demosceners can do with this… An OpenGL ZX Spectrum? Who knows!"

  17. Posted · Edited by retro_fan

    Note: I all of a sudden got very busy with paid work so updates will be a lot slower now unfortunately. I am going to try and keep at it but my time has been vastly curtailed now to do so. Sorry about this in advance.

     

     

    It is possible to do analog-only stuff- in fact my cores I converted start out analog only and then I add the stuff to do HDMI after it is all working.

     

     

    The nt mini only has 1 FPGA. The Zimba 3000 however has two. If the mini had two it would've made my life soooooo much easier. Too bad it was cost prohibitive.

    It's obvious that you need paid work. Thanks for everything!

     

    If analog-only stuff would mean adding some more powerful cores for the Nt mini than do this! I gonna say this once again "the more people test cores the better". As it will benefit both the Z3K and the Nt mini.

  18. Posted · Edited by retro_fan

    Should it be possible to add some 16-bit cores but with analogue out only? Take the HDMI out resources for the core..

    Very good question!

     

    [atmn: Should it be possible to add some 16-bit cores but with analogue out only?]

     

    Probably but ask kevtris, also one of the defining characteristic it's the support of HDMI once that is dropped I am not sure the allure to be the same.

     

    [...]

    Probably the allure won't be the same, but even for the preservation and all-in-one console aspect I think it would be worth it. And I guess even HDMI lovers would agree that it's better to have an additional analog-only Nt mini core than no core at all. Aside from this, the more people test cores the better, and remember that such analog-only Nt mini cores would be used by the Z3K which is going to support HDMI for even these more powerful consoles.

     

    Let's see what kevtris would say.

    • Like 1

  21. Posted

    Check this out.. finally got around to trying SMS, and the colors seem off over Composite (although I'm probably one of the few who care about composite :lol:) I wonder if it's core related?... because the colors on the other cores (e.g. NES, Colecovision) seem fine over the same composite cable. It's kinda hard to take a good pic of a CRT, but this gives a basic idea between the NTMini and a original Genesis running the game. [...]

    Currently the Nt mini precisely recreates composite video for the NES only. Kevtris might add such a feature for other consoles some time in the future. Other outputs are supposed to be as clean as it is only possible.

  22. Posted

     

    The hybrid technology could have its advantages for retrogaming. Depending on how well the CPU and FPGA work together, you can have the CPU handle tasks which would be best suited to a high speed CPU like menus. loading ROMs, emulating optical disk drives, applying filters and perhaps even scaling while the FPGA's resources are maximized on recreating the original hardware logic.

    Combining a CPU (and maybe even a GPU) with an FPGA is a really interesting idea. But is something like this even possible? Maybe kevtris could tell us more.

  23. Posted

    [...]

     

    I'm far far from knowledgeable about displays, but Kev was 100% right man.. I A/B'd a real NES and the NT Mini and to my eyes the picture was exactly the same, colors, sizing, idiosyncrasies and all. Pretty cool after fiddling with console emulators (xbox, wii, etc.) for so many years, which even after resizing, rescaling, etc. on an old tv set, was never quite exactly the same picture (especially colors). Not that it matters too much, but it's cool to see.

     

     

     

     

     

    That's awesome! And how do you find the Nt mini sound vs a real NES?

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