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CZroe

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Everything posted by CZroe

  1. CZroe
    Not sure if it is wired correctly for doing simultaneous output without issue but even if it isn't it will probably work and just be too dim. The test should still work. Does the included composite cable turn off the display? I did see some videos that show it uses a mono AV cable, which is how it fits audio, video, and ground onto a three pole connector. If you want stereo you are expected to get it from the headphone jack on the side. Any flash card should be able to run 240p Test Suite. If you have the Smokemonster TurboGrafx/PC Engine ROM set it is in the Tools folder. The test shows a picture of Major Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell with a flashing drop shadow sprite that you can move around on the screen using the D-pad. One button changes the shadow sprite to a Sonic the Hedgehog flying enemy sprite with a drop shadow. The shadow is supposed to flash at 60hz so you can still see the part of the Major it covers. It should not change when moving. If the video processor does bad scaling it may appear striped, solid, invisible, or change when moving (you might see stripes when moving down, for example). Every detail covered by the drop shadow is supposed to remain visible and unchanged except for the perceived shadow over it.
  2. CZroe
    I'm starting to think it may have the same scaler as the RetroTink 2X since people are claiming that it has no latency and all the flicker effects work right. Someone really has to try the Lens of Truth drop shadow test from 240p Test Suite! Do you have a TurboEverdrive? If it is the same scaler chip as RetroTink 2X then it should output 480p. It's also the same one used in some Wii2HDMI adapters... the ones that support 240p component video for Virtual Console titles. I recall the water in Bonk looking really fast but 60hz would make it look like both frames are flashing in place, semi-transparent, so it's likely slower. Water does often use the effect for transparency, like in Castlevania Dracula X Rondo of Blood. Obviously we can't try CD-ROM² titles like that on this thing until the Retro Game Restore HuDebug is released but that would be a killer package.
  3. CZroe
    I'm sure the modern LCD looks great, especially compared to anything we had back then, but the scaler issues are well known. If it sources RGB things will look a bit better than the original composite or RF output, just like those SCART2HDMI boxes of TurboGrafx-16 HDMI cables with the same scaler chip... but that chip is intended to handle analog inputs for a modern digital display which is why it processes video the same way they do (treats 240p as 480i). It isn't that it causes flickering and flashing, it's that it causes problems with intentional 60hz flickering and flashing that a game might use for something like simulated transparency. A flashing character or drop shadow might appear solid, invisible, striped, or all three (cycling) instead of see-through. Also, smooth scrolling is a 60hz effect which causes the image to go soft when moving on these scalers. At least that is hard to notice since it only happens when everything is moving and sharpens back up as soon as it stops. This also means the image gets "double scaled" when you use the HDMI output on a display that needs to scale it again. Since both have frame buffers for motion-adaptive de-interlacing, neither are a zero-latency scaler like RAD2X, RetroTink 2X, OSSC, etc. This may add up to something noticable. Even if it sources composite I'm sure it's just as serviceable as the Hyperkin HDMI cables available. Even so, I'd never blow $40+$10 on one of those (Hyperkin sells a $10 PC Engine adapter piece) when I could get a RetroTink 2X Mini that properly handles 240p for all my old consoles. I wouldn't have the attached LCD, of course, so it really comes down to that. I'm positive this thing wouldn't exist if the PC Engine LT didn't exist but at least that could be used with a CD-ROM² Interface Unit.
  4. CZroe
    Perhaps seeing it with a Print Booster will suffice? Just uploaded a couple hours ago: SuperGrafx made the thumbnail in the second video but features in both.
  5. CZroe
    LOL! I know exactly what you mean and why: http://imgur.com/a/grD2iFz "A100KΩ" means it is a 100K-ohm potentiometer with a logarithmic "audio" taper when this type of thing would typically use a linear taper pot. Log is typically used for audio since sounds that are twice as loud are not actually perceived that way in our minds, which becomes exaggerated the louder a sound actually is. This requires a much more aggressive ramp for an adjustable amplification circuit once you pass the mid point. With a linear taper most people would swear that their volume is barely getting any louder past a certain point when it is measurably ramping just as fast. Point is, perception is king and people would not get the level of control they expect without using log taper for volume. Turning the volume dial all the way up may sound twice as loud as half way but it is measurably much louder. For something like a turbo slider you should use lin pots since users expect the physical midpoint to have a turbo speed that is half way between the difference of the max and min settings/positions. I actually didn't believe Micomsoft would make that mistake and had to make my own makeshift wiper to confirm: Yes, they used a log taper slide pot. It's constructed such that you can get reverse audio taper or standard audio taper since is has four pins. I measured with my own sliding probe and it definitely ramps through the majority of the resistance range on one side. Thanks for the feedback. At least we know the wipers didn't fall out of yours as seemingly happened to mine. These are 35mm long with something like 15-20mm travel (can't recall). Since these should never have been log pots I should be able to find something that works BETTER than the original. So, yeah, I've been digging through component data sheets looking for a replacement and haven't found the perfect ones yet but I did find that they typically use A to mean Audio taper (logarithmic), B for Linear taper, and C for Reverse-Audio taper.
  6. CZroe
    I've seen users who didn't know it could power the system so they still had their original power supply plugged in. Of course that means you have TWO power supplies connected to the same system, which can't be good. It really should block the power jack when imstalled, much like the CD-ROM² Interface Unit does. At least it lets you use a USB power bank. I'd also like to know how the stereo AV output can possibly work without four poles but it very clearly has only three, like any stereo headphone jack. I can only see this working if it is actually mono or if they expect the TV and console to be tied to the same ground, which obviously can't happen when powering from a USB power bank. I don't have one but I'm not terribly impressed by the build quality I see online. In Hijiquish's videos I see the video get super flaky when he touches the cable or moves the console. He also seemed to have trouble attaching it to some consoles. The flex ribbon is somewhat exposed between the two halves and the speaker grills look like they were designed by someone who just didn't give a crap. Probably works better than an old Duo LCD or PC Engine LT, at least, but the scaler inside is just your average $15-$20 converter that doesn't properly support 240p (the console's native resolution). Expect issues and artifacts with 60hz effects like flashing for simulated translucency.
  7. CZroe
    The same reason all those crap console-specific HDMI cables from #Pound, Xtreme, Hyperkin, LevelHike, etc exist: They don't actually engineer anything new. They just take an existing thing ($15 HDMI converters) and cram it into a new thing (console-specific cable or housing like Warrior 64). They aren't even familiar with retrogaming enough to realize that there is a problem with 240p on modern TVs... just like all the people buying those cables or the $15-$20 converters before that so I guess a lot of users perpetuate this, but a proper product is also an opportunity to educate users and show them why your product matters (ala RAD 2X cables). Speaking of users who just don't know... I couldn't roll my eyes harder when the Turbografx-16/PC Engine community jumped all over modding those HDMI cables for consoles that weren't yet supported, like TurboGrafx and Neo Geo. All they had done was paid $10 more than one of the generic boxes and put in a bunch of effort to have something that's still no better than a generic box. Yuck. Just what did they think they were accomplishing?! So many convinced themselves that it was "way better" than the generics without even checking to see if it had the exact same issues with 240p (it did). Still no word on mine. Not sure what's up.
  8. CZroe
    Still haven't received mine. Starting to wonder...
  9. CZroe
    Had a bit of a scare with my PC Engine IFU briefcase setup the other day. A future roommate was dropping some stuff off when my brother realized we still had some things in what was about to be the new guy's room. Basically, the top shelf in the closet had a lot of the consoles I didn't have room to have in the living room at the moment. My bro started moving them out and the new guy started "helping." ...and by "helping" I mean he dropped the twinFAMICOM and one of my fully populated PC Engine CD-ROM² System Interface Units a whole storey (top floor to bottom floor). D: Dude was just dropping off an air mattress so no idea why he felt compelled to help us clear the closet. The power/AV panel was shifted on the IFU-30A Interface Unit and the casing was splitting open in a few places but the CD-ROM² drive and original white PC Engine console were fine. I was pretty worried about the IFU but after disassembling and reassembling it to get everything back where it was supposed to be it doesn't look like anything ever happened. It had basically just unsnapped at a few places. That thing is built like a tank! Back in 2017 I had 3D printed a "Magnetic Head Protector" for my twinFAMI which I believe is supposed to protect the heads while being shipped/transported. Thankfully, I had it installed while in storage. It had somehow popped out while the drive was still in the loaded position so I had eject a phantom disk to get it to accept a real one. Still works! *WHEW*
  10. CZroe
    You can get original audio from the RAM adapter by enabling Cartridge Audio but it will me digitized analog. If you want digital audio then you need to enable the FPGA replication of the FDS audio hardware. Despite what MLiG says, it's best to leave Cartridge Audio disabled if you aren't using it so that you aren't encoding and injecting analog noise into your digital audio when you aren't even using it.
  11. CZroe
    I think Plug and Play was just a language barrier thing, since they removed that claim very early on. I believe what they meant was that you could directly plug in an HDMI cable. Yeah, big deal, but that's the only usability distinguishment over their external HDMI adapters that could also be called "plug and play." Obviously, the convenience of "direct plug and play" HDMI output doesn't consider the one-time effort of installation. Bob's already done exactly what I was hoping to do with mine (add RetroTink with a proper RGB mod) and managed to do it before I even got mine since he got his from MJR back in November and mine still hasn't arrived. Oh well. At least I'll be able to tell if the final units are somehow different.
  12. CZroe
    I'm sure it depends on the games, but later cabinets dropped the slots and devs probably stopped caring later on. Still, it was one of the earliest consoles to have a memory card. Not sure if the Genesis CD Backup RAM Cartridge and PC Engine Ten no Koe 2 count for their respective platforms since the cards themselves did not exist until after the AES with it's PCMCIA cards.
  13. CZroe
    That, and also let's players resume play from/on the home console or exchange hi-scores set at home with hi-scores on the public machine.
  14. CZroe
    Interesting to see the prototype version for consoles support a straight RGB amp but there's no way the final DIY kit would include that. It would mean giving every DIY order essentially TWO complete RGB restore kits when the same multi-out board can be used for all three N64 encoder types if they just include a third digital-side adapter board... that's the little one that's basically just a connector on a PCB. Also, between Sep/Oct they updated to show three digital-side adapter boards instead of two. Lastly, the DIY "Installation Instructions" video only instructs users on the digital installation. I know they sent out a survey before shipping the kits but I'm pretty sure it didn't ask people to identify their console revision since I ordered one for the LULZ and don't recall any question like that. That means they aren't sending different DIY kits to different buyers. Then again, they supposedly shipped and I haven't received mine yet so maybe they are waiting for an answer. Heck, half the reason I pulled the trigger was because I wanted to use the extra adapter boards as digital break-out boards for something like eTim's N64RGB or Borti's N64Advanced.
  15. CZroe
    Going back to the NES example, it depends on whether the core also replicates the cartridge hardware or not. I don't know what characteristics there are with the way the Intellivision reads it's ROMs but the existing ROM dumps were probably made by literally removing the chips and dumping them which is not necessarily how the system sees them through it's data bus. Replicating the way the original system did it as accurately as possible without adding an extra layer of complexity to convert those raw dumps back into something the core can use may have required a different format. Remember: The old systems don't read them straight off the SD card so the jailbreak has to copy them to memory in a way that replicates the original cartridge. Sometimes that means replicating things like latency, read speed, and blocking RAM writes so that it appears to be running on ROM instead of RAM. Indeed, a lot of copy protections for old backup hardware worked by writing to addresses that should not be writable and then reading back what was written.
  16. CZroe
    From the statement acknowledging the required format, it seems that they needed it in a format that fits or better aligns with the core's native architecture. It's possible that such a format was never considered before because no one was trying to run them on original hardware or a replica of original hardware without physically duplicating the cartridge too. Since the cartridge doesn't factor here they probably decided a new ROM format was a better fit than a secondary core for replicating the cartridge and whatever code is needed to convert/process the more popular ROM formats.
  17. CZroe
    Didn't know they made a black one. They sure got some mileage out of that design!
  18. CZroe
    Well, I got the XE-1 HE Pro in the mail today and it's a mixed bag. As a microswitch joystick it performs great but as a turbo controller, well, something is very wrong with mine. The listing promised that it had adjustable turbo and that's the part that doesn't work. Turbo is stuck at a slower-than-manual speed and you can't raise it even though the sliders appear intact and clean. The low speed turbo setting on a standard TurboPad is many times faster. Something seems wrong with the pots. GoldenWheels is right that it's a bit small, which prompts me to recline and relax with it in a position where my hand is really resting on my leg. It's actually very comfortable but I get sloppy with my inputs and end up crouching a lot when I don't intend to. That can be easily fixed with the 4-way setting but I want my 8-directions, darn it! Honestly, it's only a tiny bit more than I wanted to pay for a broken one but the seller did say it was working with adjustable turbo. Sent a message so maybe he'll offer a discount. I have to wonder if the slide potentiometers are failing in all of them by this point. I like that the buttons can be completely rotated to reverse I & II in case the game does not support this. Also, since they are roman numerals, the captions are still correct. Surprisingly the Select and Run buttons are also clicky though they don't quite feel like microswitches. I do wish they were larger and easier to discriminate when you need to feel for them. Since so many PC Engine games use them for action functions (Hence: AvenuePad 3) it would've been cool to have them on the rotating part with the other buttons but that may not have been possible considering the additional connections required.
  19. CZroe
    Love that is still says A & B. I have a boxed "Explorer" joystick somewhere that was clearly adapted from NES to Genesis since one of the rectangular buttons from a column in the center became the Genesis A button with NES B & A becoming Genesis B & C. It's a weird one.
  20. CZroe
    I probably won't be the only person stumbling on this old thread through Google so I thought I should point out that the Sega part is all screwy. The legend color coding/description doesn't match the diagram for pins 6, 7, and 8.
  21. CZroe
    The Micomsoft XE-1 HE Pro is better-suited to shooters than fighters since it isn't a 6-button stick and GoldenWheels up there already called it his go-to PC Engine stick. Perhaps give it a look? My XE-1 HE Pro has been stuck in Atlanta for several days so I still haven't been able to try it yet but I have high expectations. I've also got an NEC TurboStick en route but I expect that to perform more like the NES Advantage with rubber dome switches on everything, including the stick... yuck. I mean, I like the NES Advantage for what it is (classic) and play with it all the time but I would never consider that kind of stick "good" for anything particular like fighters of shooters. It's basically an over-sized D-Pad. Speaking of the NES Advantage, the ASCII Stick Engine AS-7749-EG seems like the PC Engine version with the only notable difference being that it doesn't have latching turbo switches (no doubt, negated or built-in to the turbo speed dials). While it's supposed to be the PC Engine version of the Family Computer ASCII Stick Jr AS-7749-FC, the shaft even looks identical to the NES Advantage so I expect another rubber dome stick. That's disappointing since the ASCII Stick II Turbo AS-3399-FC is my favorite Famicom/NES stick out there and it uses genuine Seimitsu stick buttons switches. I know they made versions of it for other platforms like MSX/MSX2 but I don't see one for PCE. Easy recommendation if there were! I believe Brooks makes a converter that will let you use any modern stick you want.
  22. CZroe
    Because the code works with varying hardware inside the cartridge that the NES emulator wouldn't be aware of to replicate without the header. Also, NES ROMs are generally two ROMs in one, Character (Graphics) and Program, concatenated together. Without the iNES header the emulator wouldn't know where one ROM dump ends and the other begins. For the games without a character ROM, well, they need a header to know that they need to emulate a cartridge's character RAM instead (populated with data from the program ROM). An NES ROM without a header is a bit like dumping your car's ECU ROM and telling a software emulator to simulate a dyno run when it doesn't know anything else about your engine to replicate it. It doesn't even know what engine you have.
  23. CZroe
    *swoon* Even better and more interesting than I thought. Looks like I've got some research to do. Thanks!
  24. CZroe
    Interesting that the Nectaris overlay relabels the buttons with their game-specific functions. ...and what a tease. Now I want to see that stick underneath. What is it and what is it for? I finally bought a Micomsoft XE-1 HE Pro that should be on its way to me now and I need a new stick to lust for.
  25. CZroe
    The GameShark Pro/Action Replay Pro for N64 also has two interleaved PLCC package ROM chips... probably so that they could get away with a little CPLD to replicate the rest of the N64's addressing logic. V64jr and PV-Backup both used Altera FPGAs (much more expensive).
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