FPGA Based Videogame System

[Newsdee]

One of the things that interested me the most was the "dot crawl" stuff.

So apparently the Z3K will be able to look just like a real NES on a CRT? Not just 240p, but also have the same weird artifacts the original NES gave it? MAAAAN THAT is cool.

To me personally, it can't get more legit and fun than that. I hope that's still there in the final version!

 

This is pretty standard for FPGA implementations of older hardware. Check out the MIST board for example, some cores support direct 15khz SCART output (but not the NES one).

[decimata]

Today Analogue announced their Analogue Nt Mini, which is engineered by Kevtris. So is the Analogue Nt mini a clone of the Zimba 3000 or a stripped down version?

 

Or is the Analogue Nt mini the commercial version of the Zimba 3000? Starting with the NES as the most popular base console, with additional cart adapters to come later?

[narshe]

It's a completely different product. They just hired him to help out or paid for (licensed) the tech. Ketris has also stated he wants the price of the Z3K to be pretty low. $500 for a single console is a lot. You can find brand new un-opened NES on eBay for less than that. I would never pay $500 for that... but would gladly pay $500 for what the Z3K will have.

 

I believe the first post on this topic talks about what Ketris wants to include in the Z3K. Lots of console cores, several outputs, several inputs, and runs off a flash card or similar. There would be adapters for different consoles that you could get separately if you want to put in actual carts, and adapters for different controllers. This is one way to keep the cost down. Those who want that can pay for it. I'm definitely one of those people.

[veelk55]

I just saw the announcement for the NT Mini.

Yeah, the Analogue NT has been a different system from the start

 

Why is the Analogue NT so expensive though? Is it the aluminum stuff?

My OCD is tolerant, but having 1 console made of aluminum and others made of plastic is totally going to trigger me.
Then I will want an aluminum GameBoy, Pocket, Color, Advance, SNES...

But wait, then I will realize that all my cartridges are plastic and don't look like they were born for these systems...

Point is, I'm not interested in paying such a high price IF it's the aluminum driving it that high.

 

I'm interested in the Mini NES Classic, which seems to be sold out at the moment, and already scalped on ebay. -____-

(Some people are paying around $150 for it or more and it hasn't come out)

I freaking hope it's not like the amiibo thing. I really want one, as long as it has very little lag because the WiiU NES emulation sucked.

I'm also interested in the AVS NES, but mostly because the Zimba3000 doesn't exist yet

The AVS NES does have an interesting looking design. I'm unsure how its 720p limit will affect me and my TV.

Edited August 22, 2016 by veelk55

[decimata]

Perhaps they did just hire him or license the tech. But usually when a company does that sort of thing, they have the engineer sign a non compete. And releasing another console like the Z3K that plays more consoles off of an SD card for $200+ cheaper is some serious competition.

 

I'm just wondering how differently internally the Analogue Nt mini is to the final design of the Z3K. Because if Analogue was smart, they'd just license the Z3K and come out with multiple versions directed towards a specific retro console, I.E. an SNES one, Genesis one, ETC. selling the same internals multiple times over.

 

Granted, I'd rather take a Z3K that does everything.

 

I think RetroUSBs AVS is pretty solid with what it does. I don't think 720p will be an issue. But we will see when I get mine in.

[decimata]

Oh and the NES Mini Classic, those internals are a stripped down original Wii. Think about it, take a Wii, remove the DVD drive, Bluetooth, take away the Wii-mote, online capability, change the menu to say NES instead of Wii, and boom, new console.

[veelk55]

Oh my doubt about the 720p is that see, I own a RetroN5, and a Plasma TV that is natively 1024x768.
This TV has no lag with anything that comes from the WiiU and PS4's HDMI, and they're 1080p systems, even consoles with AV cables play really fast, minus a very slight almost unnoticeable input lag (for what I assume is the analog - digital conversion).

The RetroN5 is unplayable on this TV, but it behaves better in a computer monitor. I have never figured out why this is, but my only suspicion is that the 720p is causing it.

I almost can't sleep at night imagining the AVS being slower than my NES with AV cables due to whatever my TV is doing :/ (and I tried Game Mode and a lot of other options)

 

As for the stripped down original Wii, that's actually GREAT. Because look, the Wii had much better NES emulation.
It's even better than the WiiU's own NES emulation.
Even if you're using a WiiU in Wii mode, that Wii mode's NES emulation is better.
I could win to Mr. Dream (Punch-Out!!) in one try in Wii mode.

Yet I lost like 50 times to him and never won in WiiU mode.

Edited August 22, 2016 by veelk55

[narshe]

It might be doing some upscaling. Also, I guarantee you TV has a decent amount of lag. Anything that isn't a huge tube CRT does. The very best out there right now has 9ms of lag. That's enough for me to perceive. I think the retron uses an emulator, which means there would be some input lag. There is probably lag from the retron outputing the singal too.

 

Here is a site that tracks the actual lag displays have. http://www.displaylag.com/display-database/

 

9ms is more than half a frame, which is noticeable to me. I can't go from a CRT to any modern display. I can even notice lag on the wireless remotes on the wii when hooked up to a CRT. I'm pretty sensitive to this stuff though.

[veelk55]

Oh I know the RetroN5 is using emulators (and I think they're stolen code, too )

And yes the RetroN5 has like something around 30 to 40 ms or more of lag at least according to one of the devs I contacted once.

On my computer monitor, I can feel it must be around that, so it must not be adding any processing lag.

On a Plasma TV we have in the livingroom, it's way worse. Like it feels like it has almost twice the already horrible input lag of the emulators (and I used wired controllers).

But my PS4 and WiiU feel about the same on all 3 of my computer monitor, plasma TV, and WiiU connected to my CRT via AV.

So you're saying that best case scenario, I have 9 ms of lag in HD TV, plus the wireless remote lag from my controllers?

If this is true, and I can't feel it, then I'll probably have enough tolerance for the AVS.

 

Sadly I can't find my exact TV's model in that database, but it is an Insignia NS-42P650A11.

[Andromeda Stardust]

I have an ASUS 1080p PC monitor (~9ms lag) I use for gaming. It scales 720p flawlessly.

 

I don't care what anybody says, you are playing Russian Roulette if you buy an HDTV for gaming purposes. Manufacturers don't publish latency figures so you have to rely on independent research. Stick to 1080p monitors even if the display is a bit smaller. Minimal image processing, zero overscan. Oh yeah, and I use a Monoprice HDMI switch to pass audio to an analog stereo sound system. It's just a pass-through device so adds no lag.

[veelk55]

I don't care what anybody says, you are playing Russian Roulette if you buy an HDTV for gaming purposes..

 

Thank you I can take this advice seriously.

I too have an HDMI passthrough for audio when I play on my computer monitor, but THANK GOODNESS that the HDMI systems I play most just happen to have controllers that can output audio a convenient headphone jack (All games on PS4 and almost all games on WiiU), though Im assuming they will have their little bit of wireless lag, the quality is perfect.

Edited August 23, 2016 by veelk55

[Asaki]

I know a lot of people use a Wii for similar things, but by the time I became interested in this, it was a WiiU I got. Not going to get a Wii just to hack it.the SNES controller being the best (for me). The PS3 controller is similarly good too.

*cough cough* One can easily install the Homebrew Channel into Wii mode on the WiiU. It's the exact same process as soft modding an actual Wii.

 

...but you didn't hear that from me... ¬_¬

[ubersaurus]

I'd love to see Astrocade added to that FPGA personally - flaky hardware means that would be a really solid way to run those games.

 

Personally I like the idea of being able to use original controllers with the hardware, and carts, so adapters for specific consoles makes sense to me on top of a card slot and USB ports. I'd also love to see RGB/analog out, since I"m a CRT sucker (and as said, it's better for lightguns, ROB, speedruns etc)

 

Cool project idea.

[veelk55]

I suddenly start to wonder also if there's a possibility for "borders", like for example if I played a GameBoy game, I don't want the whole screen to be the GameBoy's screen cause it would be huge pixels.

In my opinion, the GameBoy screen should be like the Super GameBoy does it, with the pixels the same size they normally would be in the same area as an NES or SNES game, and fill the rest with a border.

I'd even like this for every game system too, not just GameBoy, since all other systems are gonna have black borders on the side for sure, i'd like to put custom images there.

I have no idea how that would work in this FPGA system or if something like that is even possible here.

 

On my PC, I also have my GameBoy emulator configured to be a bit faster too, so it matches the speed of a Super GameBoy, because I just like to play like that sometimes to feel like I'm using a real SGB. It would be nice if that were possible, but since this is an FPGA core, again, I have no idea how or if something like that would work.

I also have every possible palette configured for GB and GBC. Would love to be able to set custom palettes in the FPGA if it had the options like PC emulators do.

I don't mind creating my own palettes if it had the option, as long as there's space for a lot of them.

 

I have my own NES palettes I'd like to use as well. So how would any of that work?

Edited August 26, 2016 by veelk55

[narshe]

Please no. I really dislike borders and would much rather have it be full screen.

 

Same with the Super GameBoy speed. It was incorrect. Super GameBoy 2 was released later that fixed this and it ran at the exact same speed as the GameBoy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Game_Boy#Super_Game_Boy_2I'm sure changing speed would be a fairly easy thing to do though. Also, you could just use your Super GameBoy with this, lol.

 

Someone else will need to chime in about how doable this would be, but this is my guess. There will need to be menus, so some software, running outside of the console cores to select games and other things. That would mean this software would also have to run the core inside a window somehow. I'm sure it's do-able, but it might bring the cost up or time to release later.

[veelk55]

Hehe, oh people have different tastes. If you dont like borders, you can have it fullscreen despite having the option to use borders.

Same for the Super GameBoy speed, even though it is incorrect, I like it that way because simply, that's how the first SGB was made, and I got used to it.
I do like the feeling the speed gives it, it constantly reminds me that I'm not using a standard GameBoy anymore. Music kinda sounds a bit more cheeful too which I liked.

 

Right, I forgot about the possibility that I could just use my own SGB ... so awesome! But then again, won't this system be able to load ROMs as well?
I want to play those ROMs like that too, not just the cartridges I own.

 

As for the software, yeah, that makes sense. Not sure if there's already any software in there, but if it would increase price, I'd rather it doesn't do that then so people don't have to pay for my features I personally would pay for that though, if in a perfect world, there was a magic option in the order page that includes that.

 

People definitely have different preferences about color palettes for GameBoy games though. Some prefer full black and white, others prefer less grey contrast to appear like a GameBoy Pocket. I prefer the greenish DMG colors, which almost no one seems to reproduce well enough in their setups.

 

Here is 1 of many settings I use for myself. Complete with "yellow outline" from the screen.

 

 

 

Libretro has some nice filters too, but they don't quite match my taste exactly, everyone just likes something a bit different.

 

http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130717183918/emulation-general/images/c/ce/Gb.png

Edited August 26, 2016 by veelk55

[narshe]

Color palettes would definitely be nice.

[Andromeda Stardust]

I suddenly start to wonder also if there's a possibility for "borders", like for example if I played a GameBoy game, I don't want the whole screen to be the GameBoy's screen cause it would be huge pixels.

In my opinion, the GameBoy screen should be like the Super GameBoy does it, with the pixels the same size they normally would be in the same area as an NES or SNES game, and fill the rest with a border.

I'd even like this for every game system too, not just GameBoy, since all other systems are gonna have black borders on the side for sure, i'd like to put custom images there.

I have no idea how that would work in this FPGA system or if something like that is even possible here.

 

On my PC, I also have my GameBoy emulator configured to be a bit faster too, so it matches the speed of a Super GameBoy, because I just like to play like that sometimes to feel like I'm using a real SGB. It would be nice if that were possible, but since this is an FPGA core, again, I have no idea how or if something like that would work.

I also have every possible palette configured for GB and GBC. Would love to be able to set custom palettes in the FPGA if it had the options like PC emulators do.

I don't mind creating my own palettes if it had the option, as long as there's space for a lot of them.

 

I have my own NES palettes I'd like to use as well. So how would any of that work?

GBA's 240x160p scales flawlessly 3x to 720x480p, or 4.5x to 720. So 720p video at 4x would leave thin borders with a 960x640 window inside.

 

At 1080p, GBA could nicely scale 6x to a 1440x960 window, or 7x with minor cropping. Note there is no "safe area" with handheld screens so any cropping of the picture buy the FPGA or the display overscan would be undesireable.

 

GB's 160x144 scaling would be more complex. I would be in favor of simulating a SGB module with screen borders for monochrome games that support it, but you would need a scaled down SNES FPGA core plus the SGB core, requiring a lot of gates.

[Great Hierophant]

GBA's 240x160p scales flawlessly 3x to 720x480p, or 4.5x to 720. So 720p video at 4x would leave thin borders with a 960x640 window inside.

 

At 1080p, GBA could nicely scale 6x to a 1440x960 window, or 7x with minor cropping. Note there is no "safe area" with handheld screens so any cropping of the picture buy the FPGA or the display overscan would be undesireable.

 

GB's 160x144 scaling would be more complex. I would be in favor of simulating a SGB module with screen borders for monochrome games that support it, but you would need a scaled down SNES FPGA core plus the SGB core, requiring a lot of gates.

The HDMYboy does 1120x1008

[Newsdee]

Right, I forgot about the possibility that I could just use my own SGB ... so awesome! But then again, won't this system be able to load ROMs as well?

You can load ROMs with the SGB + a GB Everdrive

Edited August 27, 2016 by Newsdee

[fiddlepaddle]

Actually, having a variable speed up adjustment would be cool. Some games become much more fun at higher speed.

[Asaki]

I have my own NES palettes I'd like to use as well. So how would any of that work?

Someone was actually working on an NES flashcart that would also run Gameboy (DMG?) ROMs...I think it was Kevtris?

[SnoopKatt]

Someone was actually working on an NES flashcart that would also run Gameboy (DMG?) ROMs...I think it was Kevtris?

Maybe you're talking about something else, but bunnyboy does have this on his site:

http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=30&products_id=87

[Andromeda Stardust]

The HDMYboy does 1120x1008

So 7x pixel aspect for GB? Nice...

[Asaki]

Maybe you're talking about something else, but bunnyboy does have this on his site:

http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=30&products_id=87

http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=13042