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Unfortunately the shorting issues don't appear to be the only problem with the Noir: https://twitter.com/matthughson/status/1391600949542604812

It's very, very quiet on the Polymega twitter at the moment. No hype posts for over three months.

Crikey. I wonder how many of those are scalper orders.

The white one is very 'Apple', I'm sure it will be popular for that reason amongst others. I went for the black one as I expect letterboxing for GBA will be less obvious against the black body. Unless there's a white letterboxing mode of course but I haven't seen anything mentioned.

I'd buy a purple Warp edition Pocket in a heartbeat

I ordered mine (Pocket, dock, case and screen protector) within three minute (Aug 03 08:03AM according to my confirmation email), had no issue with the shipping calculator to here in the UK. Shipping was $34.99, probably because I just ordered the one Pocket. I feel sorry for those that had issues that prevented them from getting their order in, I can't see why Analogue would limit this so much other than to create artificial scarcity.

Thanks, that's pretty reassuring and I'm sure the warranty will be long expired by the time the battery needs to be replaced.

I'm just wondering how easy it will be to swap out the battery on the Pocket when it inevitably starts dying.

This is what annoys me with the support for the original NT Mini. When Analogue announced on their Twitter that the Noir will have "all known game bugs fixed" I asked on the discord if the original NT Mini will get the bug fixes where kevtris replied that "I probably won't backport fixes due to various reasons". I understand that the Noir will have a completely new and rewritten NES core but if kev understands what was causing the bugs why can't the fixes be implemented in the original NT Mini NES core? Obviously his time is limited due to his work on the Noir and the Pocket, but it really does make a mockery of Analogue's spiel on "absolute accuracy... you’ll be experiencing the NES free of any compromises" on the NT Mini product page. Again I'm not blaming any of this on kev, but Analogue's position of allowing time for just a couple of months of support for the most recently released console before moving kev on to the next product is pretty infuriating for the customers when the previous consoles remain in a buggy state.

On Speedrun.com, whether or not it is allowed is usually on a game-by-game basis, based on the decision of the moderators for that particular game. Either way, the NT Mini would need to using the analog output to match the exact frame rate/game speed of a real NES. I know it's accepted as original hardware for Super Mario Bros but I'm not really sure about any other game.

He confirmed no backporting of the bug fixes to the OG NT mini either. I can't really blame kevtris as he can only work on one thing at a time and Analogue have him working on so many projects but considering Analogue were claiming "absolute accuracy" from the very start with the NT Mini (and is still in the website spiel), to know that these bugs will not be addressed in the same way that they will be with the Noir, especially as the Noir was advertised as "the same NT Mini you know and love", is really a damn shame. The core at its very basic - how accurately it runs the games - should be absolutely on par with both models, even if the original Mini doesn't get the updated extras like interpolation.

The UI is such a minimal part of the console, after all no one buys it to just look at the menu screens. It's the extra features that the Noir will have over the original NT Mini that are a sore point, most of all interpolation which will allow the games to be played at their proper screen ratio without pixel shimmering. After all, they were advertising the Noir, at its core, as the same product ("one final run", "the same Nt mini you know and love"). And while I do understand that products can be updated over time, without advertising the improvements beforehand it leaves us original owners with a dilemma over whether it would be worth buying the new model, after all $500 is a lot of money to be paying up front, months in advance of a product even being ready to ship. All I can say is I hope us original owners at the very least get the new "100% rewritten" NES core if it turns out to be more accurate.

Obviously not, with all the brand new features the Noir is getting.

eBay's policy on pre-sale items is that the seller must be able to fulfill the order and deliver the item within 30 days of sale. As the new NT Mini run doesn't ship until ~June (I think), anyone can report the listings. Whether eBay take action however, I don't know. I would hope that they would close the listings. "Presale listings must clearly state that they are "presale" in the title and description, and guarantee delivery within 30 days of purchase." https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-policies/presale-listings-policy?id=4252 I've noticed that most of the listings do not mention the release date and have the normal delivery estimates as if this was a readily available item. If the sellers weren't already scummy enough.

Thanks for checking and confirming, I forgot to mention in my original post that I was using a 1080p display. I've gone through the settings on both my TV and A/V receiver to make sure that the TV is upscaling the 720p signal from the Sg properly but nothing I can do will correct it. I don't have a 720p display to test this with unfortunately.

Would this still be the cause of the crackling even if I have the ladder effect depth set to 0 though? I'm just trying to work out if this is the correct behaviour of the (simulated) YM2612 chip or something that needs to be looked at further by kevtris. Additionally I've found that if you select 2X Sine as the YM212 waveform you get a whole bunch of constant crackling even when no other sound is playing.

Ok, so I rolled back my firmware to 4.3 and the crackling is still there, not sure how I didn't notice it before. It's especially obvious when listening to music track 12 in the Ghouls 'n Ghosts options menu. So now I'm wondering this is something that is a wider issue with the Mega Sg, or just with my unit? If it's a wider issue, how does it compare to a real YM2612 chip in a genuine Genesis console?

There also appears to be audio issues with the main Genesis core which I'm pretty sure weren't there with the previous firmware version. There seems to be some slight crackling on one or more of the synth channels: If someone could test this and verify I will add it to the Github page.

Is it just me or is there audio crackling since the latest firmware update? Try listening during the intros to Streets of Rage 1 or 2, or on the Ghouls 'n Ghosts title screen, especially just before it fades to the demo. You may need to plug headphones into your TV/AV receiver to hear it properly.

I have my Mega Sg set at 720p with 3x vertical scaling so I don't think the issue is non-integer scaling.

Not sure if this has already been pointed out however there seems to be an issue with hybrid scanlines in 720p mode where the scanlines don't brighten uniformly. Basically the screen seems to be segmented into three horizontal sections of scanlines. If you load up the 240p test suite and display a pure white background, as you increase the scanline depth slider on the Mega Sg, first the scanlines in the centre third of the screen will lighten, then the top third, and finally the bottom third. It's only really visible on white parts of the screen but it's still a bit of an annoyance, especially in games that occasionally have large white sections being displayed on screen. It's kind of hard to see in the below photo due to the moire effect but the issue is definitely there: The settings @720p were: Hybrid scanlines: on Hybrid scanline depth:40 Scanline sub-brightness: 255

Agreed, presets would be great.

They should be able to get much darker at 720p. Try dropping the height to 719 and then adjust the scanline intensity and they will go much darker. That suggests to me that they are broken even at 720p and this seems to be the case for both normal and hybrid scanlines.

Sorry to keep bringing this up but can someone else please test this on their own Mega Sg to see if this appears to be an issue?

This probably got lost in all the jailbreak excitement, but can anybody test the above on their system and confirm if this is an issue?