Bakeriffic

An HDMI FPGA Atari 2600 would be nice but I would gladly settle for a release of the cartridge adapters that Kevtris developed for the Nt Mini that would allow for original carts to be played via the 2600 jailbreak core. It's nice to be able to play 2600 ROMs off of an SD card on the Nt Mini but if I had a cartridge adapter I would start collecting original 2600 carts to play. The only other drawback to this solution instead of a dedicated system would be having to play 2600 games using an NES controller rather than a joystick. That doesn't really bother me since I have little experience playing 2600 games using a joystick, but the lack of support for the paddle controllers is the biggest loss IMO. I haven't researched the possibility of using some type of adapter that would allow a 2600 controller to plug into an NES controller port but that might be an option.

I ignored the notifications from this thread for a couple of days and now that I see that a jailbreak FW was made available, I understand why there have been so many posts! Since I own an SD2SNES I'm probably going to stick with the official firmware unless the jailbreak adds support for the same expansion chips as the SD2SNES supports (or additional expansion chip support beyond SD2SNES capabilities). Thanks to @kevtris for all of the work that he put into developing this amazing system. My favorite feature to be added via the (official) firmware updates so far is the ability to adjust the brightness of the LED. I ordered the transparent shell and although I was not disappointed with its appearance like some people were, the LED was just WAY too bright at the default setting with that shell. I opted to turn it all the way down (yet still on) and change the color to purple, since that seems to be the dimmest color and it looks nice. One feature that i would like to see added (if possible) is a way to save different video configurations and, ideally, give them custom names. There are so many different settings to adjust and it would be nice to be able to have quick access to different combinations of settings without having to spend time going through the multitude of options in the settings. I'd love to be able to easiy switch from having an old-school CRT-like experience on the big screen (artificial scan lines with the dimensions that MLiG showed that were based on the height and width of a PVM) vs my usual preference of 5x height and 6x width with no scan lines. Beyond that, I'm looking forward to the release of the DAC module that will allow for analog video output. I suspect that there will be a new official firmware accompanying the release of that device that allows the Super NT to detect this module's presence. I'm not too technically savvy but given the bit that I do know about video signals, I would think that the most efficient way for the DAC module to work would be to output a 240p signal to the HDMI port, which the DAC would then convert to various analog signals depending on which cable is plugged into the module. Of course, 240p is not an option in the current firmware and most modern TV's probably wouldn't recognize a 240p via HDMI since it was only added to the official HDMI spec recently. This makes me think that the 240p option will not be accessible without having the module plugged in, since enabling that would likely result in people selecting it out of curiosity and not being able to get a picture on their HDTV. As Bob of RetroRGB has stated, another nice thing about 240p over HDMI would be that it will essentially future-proof the Super Nt for when lag-free 4k upscalers (like a future version of the OSSC) are made available. I'm not sure of how much of a difference one would be able to see in SNES picture quality between 1080 and 4k, but there may be other benefits such as slight reductions in lag when sending a 4K signal to a 4K monitor. (Let's not get back into that debate.)

I recently noticed that the AC adapter for my Nt Mini emits a high-pitched noise that sounds a bit like squealing or static. The sound is coming from the adapter itself and not from the Nt Mini or my speakers. Another interesting quirk is that the noise is noticeably louder when the Nt Mini is turned off. The system still runs just fine in spite of this but I just contacted Analogue's support team in order to request a replacement. Has anyone else experienced this issue?

I was a bit concerned when I read this because I recently dropped about $2,700 on a 2017 Sony X850E 4K TV. Upon consulting the reviews on rtings.com, which cover input lag, I discovered that they found that lag from a 1080p source @ 60Hz is similar between the two models (31.8 ms on the X850E and 31.5 ms on the X900E). I was also somewhat surprised to see that out of all of the tested sources on these native 4K sets, input lag was lower for 1080p courses than 4K sources. 4K sources add only a few milliseconds more lag but this begs the question of whether there would actually be any lag-related benefits of upscaling retro games to 4k instead of 1080p. I suppose that it depends on the TV since there a few 4K sets on the market that have lower input lag with 4K sources than 1080p. The lowest input lag on any modern 4K set seems to be in the neighborhood of 20 ms (about one frame). The most important factor when it comes to lag seems to be the frequency of the 1080p signal since lag at 120Hz is often about half the lag at 60Hz. Is there any chance that the Super NT will support 1080p @ 120Hz or will it be limited to 60Hz?

If it's possible, it would be great if Analogue could release an official adapter that would plug into the HDMI out on the Super NT and output lag-free 240p analog video via a DB-15 socket (the socket used for analog video on the NT Mini) on the other end. This way I could use the analog video cables (BNC RGB, Component, and S-Video/Composite) that I purchased from Monoprice for my NT Mini with the Super NT. Although I love being able to play the NT Mini on my 75" HDTV, I end up hooking it up to my 2006 Samsung CRT via the component cable more often in order to enjoy a true zero-lag experience with authentic scanlines. I've already pre-ordered a Super NT (transparent) and I'm very much looking forward to trying it out but analog video would be the icing on the cake, even if the solution isn't as elegant as it is on the NT Mini.

I just searched the forums and didn't see any mention of the upcoming "Upper Grafx", which is a very expensive plug & play optical drive emulator (plus DVI adapter) for the TG-16. I just learned about this yesterday in the RetroRGB Weekly roundup. There's no way that I could justify the cost of this ($412!) but it's a cool development nonetheless. Check out the segment here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHkJxZCZH_o&t=1317s

Just curious: Does anyone know if there has ever been an attempt to modify a PCE/TG-16 CD ISO file to try to get it to run from a Turbo Everdrive? I'm aware that Krikzz has made clear that the TED cannot run the ISO files and that it can simulate various versions of the CD system cards. However, I don't know enough about the technical capabilities/requirements of the TED hardware and PCE/TG-16 system hardware to know if there are technical limitations that would prevent a rom modding solution from working. I wouldn't be surprised if it's not possible but I just wanted to ask if this has ever been considered or attempted.

FYI: Another way to test for the susceptibility to the CRT color distortion that I reported about recently when using the NT Mini to play Gameboy games on a CRT is to use the 100 IRE screen in the 240p Test Suite. It will reproduce the same effect if left on the screen for several minutes. http://myweb.ecu.edu/bakermich/100ireCRT.jpeg

The NT Mini does not allow for scaling of gb/gbc games to fill the screen of a CRT so I'll just have to stick to playing these games on an LCD display in order to avoid the color distortion observed on my CRT. 7x width by 7x height for these games looks great via HDMI but it would be great if it were possible for Game Boy images to fill even more of LCD screens as well. Kevtris: Would either of these options (full screen via analog output or larger gb/gbc scaling for digital output) be possible with a future firmware update or is this beyond the limitations of the FPGA hardware?

I'm thinking that it must be something like that. If I switch from the NT Mini to a screen with static, the discoloration remains. As soon as I display something with more colors, the screen returns to normal. I have the composite & s-video dongle so I'll have to test those and see if this quirk is unique to the component input. I played the NES core with the Black & White palette to see if that would replicate the issue but it didn't. One of these days I'll break down and buy a proper PVM. Component video on a CRT usually looks amazing. I've been enjoying the NT Mini's component out and I also picked up HD Retrovision's cables for component video from my SNES and Genesis.

I've noticed a strange issue when I play the NT Mini's Gameboy core on a CRT via a component video connection. Two large areas of the screen become discolored after playing for even a few minutes (see image here: http://myweb.ecu.edu/bakermich/sml_ntmini_crt.jpeg). If I reset the system, the screen appears perfectly normal again. Any idea of what's causing this?

A non-chair and non-16-bit question for kevtris: Assuming that you're still working on developing cartridge and controller adapters for the NT Mini, how would the mapping of the switches that were originally mounted on the Atari 2600 console (difficulty, game select, and game reset) work in the event that a controller adapter for original Atari joystick and paddle buttons work is released? Currently, when playing the 2600 core in the jailbroken firmware with an NES controller, some of these functions are mapped to the extra buttons on the NES controller (select and B), with the d-pad taking the place of the joystick and the A button taking the place of the joystick's action button. However, the original Atari controllers have fewer buttons (only the joystick and action button). The solution that seems most practical to me would be to map these functions to an NES controller that would be plugged into controller port 3 or 4 on the NT Mini. I'd love to hear thoughts/plans regarding this.

Reading about all the trouble that Kevtris had getting the Everdrive N8 to work on the NT mini made me wonder if BunnyBoy (Brian Parker) had similar issues when designing/programming the AVS. I imagine that he and Kevtris both had to develop solutions independently and I wonder if they arrived at the same solution. Also, perhaps Kevtris could answer this: If/when cartridge adapters are released for the NT mini, would other varieties of Everdrives be compatible or is there potential for further complications? I know that this would be unnecessary given the support for roms via the NT mini's sd card slot but I'm just curious. Personally, I like to use my Everdrive N8 with my NT Mini rather than load roms via the sd card in order to take advantage of the Everdrive's save state feature.

I've managed to figure this out myself for the most part but I've run into a snag with an unlicensed game: Krazy Kreatures. I was able to find the mapper info online (AVE_Nina-3/AVE_Nina-6) via http://datacrystal.romhacking.net/wiki/Krazy_Kreatures. However, when I select the plugin named "AVE NINA03 and NINA06.BIN" in the "3rd Party" folder when using Copynes Mini and try to run the dump, I get a read timeout error. I've successfully dumped nearly 50 carts so far as I've gone through my collection in alphabetical order but this is the first one that I've had real trouble with. Any support that Kevtris or others could provide would be appreciated. Incidentally, while backing up my other carts I discovered that my copy of Gyromite is one of those that contains a Famicom to NES pin adapter (see HERE for more info). I removed the Famicom game circuit board from the adapter and plugged it directly into the Famicom port on my NT Mini. It loaded just fine and I dumped the game directly from that board instead of going through the adapter. Very cool! I don't own any Famicom carts so that was my first chance to test out that feature on my NT Mini.

Is there a guide for using the CopyNES feature that's built into the NT Mini? I tried to use it for the first time yesterday but was unsure of what to do when prompted to select a plugin. It appears that I might need to research the type of chip that the cart contains in order to perform the operation but I'm a total noob at this and would appreciate some guidance. Also, I've read some reports of people having difficulty getting the NT Mini to read their carts but I'm happy to say that I have had more success with this than others. I clean all of my carts by taking them apart and polishing the pins using a standard pink eraser and then buffing/cleaning with a dry cloth. The mini even read one cart on the first try that I couldn't get to work at all in my stock NES (which has a new 72-pin connector) or the AVS.

My black NT mini finally arrived today and I installed the jailbroken firmware. Thank you for your amazing work on this device, Kevtris! I had been using a RetroUSB AVS but upgraded to the NT mini for the 5x height/6x width option and the bonus system cores. I'm still getting the hang of the hotkeys. It took me a little while to figure out that I needed to press "start" on the file menu to access the core options menu within the various cores but it was smooth sailing after that. The only feature that I really miss from the AVS is the pre-programmed game genie codes for when I feel like being a lazy cheater. I'll be keeping an eye out for cartridge/controller adapters and I second the Patreon idea to support Kevtris's work on projects like updates/extras for the NT mini and the Zimba 3000.

Does anyone know if an NES Arkanoid controller would be able to control 2600 games that used the Atari paddle controller running on the 2600 core via the NT mini's jailbroken firmware?