FPGA Based Videogame System

[cacophony]

 

 

I agree. Don't know Kevtris, but hopefully Analogue has some quality people on the payroll to test and provide those specifics so end users can enjoy a "working as advertised" product.

 

Carts are as clean as I'm going to be able to get them and work 100% fine on both of my real SNES consoles, and even a crappy Hyperkin system. May be a faulty system, as you mentioned. It'll be a few days before I'll have another chance to play around with it again, sadly.

Most definitely. Your experience is the outlier here so please share the details when you have a chance. Even with ~10k systems being used now and a library in the thousands of games there have only been a handful of reported issues, most with very obscure games.

Edited February 15, 2018 by cacophony

[thirdkind]

For those that enable scanlines on the Super NT, what screen settings do you guys use to achieve the most authentic geometry on a 1080p display? I've seen several different recommendations from Great Hierophant, FirebrandX, MLiG, etc and curious what everyone uses.

 

Be sure to set your display to zero overscan for any of these recommendations. Both options will give you a 4:3 aspect ratio and crisp scanlines.

 

 

The following settings will crop a small amount of pixels at the top and bottom, but I see nothing meaningful lost in any game I've played so far:

 

Resolution: 1080p60

Width: 1600

Height: 1200

Vertical position: 45

Scaler: No scaler, enable both Horizontal and Vertical Interpolation

Scanlines: Hybrid scanlines, set depth to taste (I use 50)

 

 

The following settings provide pixel-perfect output with zero cropping, but you'll have empty space on all sides because the image won't fill the screen vertically:

 

Resolution: 1080p60

Width: 5x (1280)

Height: 4x (960)

Scaler: No scaler, Disable both horizontal and vertical interpolation

Scanlines: Normal scanlines, depth to taste

 

 

It also depends what you consider the "correct" aspect ratio for SNES games. My take is that we played the original console on 4:3 TVs, so even though the SNES's internal aspect ratio is 8:7, a CRT would've stretched it to 4:3 anyway, so 1280x960 provides a perfectly scaled image in a proper aspect ratio.

Edited February 15, 2018 by thirdkind

[LewisD]

I have been having fun with the jailbreak firmware all afternoon and decided to play Home Alone (dont ask). The game loads up but goes black after the title screen when the game starts.

 

Here is my want list for the official/jailbreak firmwares:

 

- the ability to shut down a cartridge from the menu

- the ability to dump cartridges to SD card (like NT Mini)

- the ability to create/save/load custom settings configurations

- a better on screen description of what specific settings do

- the option to increase the font size of menu interface

- more font style options

- built in display calibration assist tool (RGB color bars, greyscale, etc)

- the ability to power down the Super NT hardware remotely via the menu

[D3ltax55]

I want to know if a monitor that has over 60hz. Will it benefit with the other buffer options without taring and smooth game play?

[Shadowgate]

I have been having fun with the jailbreak firmware all afternoon and decided to play Home Alone (dont ask). The game loads up but goes black after the title screen when the game starts.

 

Here is my want list for the official/jailbreak firmwares:

- built in display calibration assist tool (RGB color bars, greyscale, etc)

 

This one you already have on any console that can run roms. The 240p test suite. It's the gold standard.

[Beer Monkey]

Is anyone else's system going into shutdown (from idling, presumably) really fast?

 

Sometimes I'll pause a game and go into the kitchen and make a cup of tea, and I come back and it has shut down (and I'm between save opportunities and have lost progress).

 

Is it just me?

 

OK, I so habitually turn off my TV when I leave the room, and back on when I return, that I don't even think about what I'm doing. It's basically subconscious. Been doing it ever since I got a plasma ten years ago, to avoid burn-in from static elements.

 

So, yeah, the NT was turning off because I turn the TV off. Feature, not a bug.

 

 

I want to know if a monitor that has over 60hz. Will it benefit with the other buffer options without taring and smooth game play?

 

Super NT only outputs at 60.00hz.

Edited February 15, 2018 by Beer Monkey

[Kaide]

I have. No interference between the controllers. But for whatever reason, using one or both of them does interfere with my laptops Wi-Fi signal. I use other Bluetooth devices all the time with no interference, but for whatever reason, it drops connection when using those controllers.

 

I'll add that we played through most of TMNT IV with two wireless controllers without any real complaints to be had. Didn't notice the interference, but we put quite a bit on the 5Ghz band in our home, so that may be helping.

 

Yes, it was. I tried a flash with my Classic Super Nt and got the same silvery result from the surface around the cartridge port and buttons.

 

Good to know. I was a little surprised to see it, and was hoping it was just a trick of the light. I got the SFC style, so I haven't seen the Classic style in person yet.

 

No, it works fine on the SD2SNES, just not on an SD card via the jailbreak loader.

 

 

Huh, that makes me wonder if the memory space isn't big enough for ROMs that gigantic. Or if there's just a bug with that size ROM. But considering the smaller size of the pack-in titles, and no shipping titles being more than 48Mbit, I wouldn't be too surprised if it just didn't devote enough memory to hold a 96Mbit ROM.

[Kismet]

I haven't had any bugs or glitches with real cartridges other than DKC3 telling me it can't run with devices used to copy games, and that was resolved by cleaning the cartridge extra well.

 

When they say "99% of problems are caused by dirty cartridges" it's probably quite true. If I understand correctly, the Super NT provides a slightly lower amount of power to the cartridge, and I imagine that makes clean contacts even more important. Especially if you're having lots of graphical glitches in different games, it probably represents a collection that hasn't been cleaned in a while. Especially if they're like... obvious ones that would've been spotted in basic testing.

 

The only cart I had that had an issue was the SFC Sailor Moon cart, and it fixed it self after the third time I put it in the Super NT (this game starts with a black screen for a few seconds because it's playing audio.) So the theory here is that the electrical resistance might be different with the Super NT cart connector, so you would obviously need to clean the contacts of carts better than you would on the original SNES. Also I kinda wish it had a mechanical eject mechanism so that even pressure would be placed on the cart as it's removed due to how grippy it is, but if the SD2SNES is just going to sit in it most of the time, I'm not too concerned.

Edited February 16, 2018 by Kismet

[retro_fan]

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.

 

Talking about an old-school CRT-like experience, I have already mentioned that UltraHDMI (also FPGA-based) has something called "Retro Mode", you can see how this looks on this page.

[retro_fan]

@Kevtris, some people mentioned problems with their screens in this thread, do you think it would be a good idea if they provided their EDID dumps for you? Is the AMD EDID Utility a good tool for this (on this page they mention a text and binary file which format do you prefer, BTW?)?

[bikerspade]

Be sure to set your display to zero overscan for any of these recommendations. Both options will give you a 4:3 aspect ratio and crisp scanlines.

 

 

The following settings will crop a small amount of pixels at the top and bottom, but I see nothing meaningful lost in any game I've played so far:

 

Resolution: 1080p60

Width: 1600

Height: 1200

Vertical position: 45

Scaler: No scaler, enable both Horizontal and Vertical Interpolation

Scanlines: Hybrid scanlines, set depth to taste (I use 50)

 

 

The following settings provide pixel-perfect output with zero cropping, but you'll have empty space on all sides because the image won't fill the screen vertically:

 

Resolution: 1080p60

Width: 5x (1280)

Height: 4x (960)

Scaler: No scaler, Disable both horizontal and vertical interpolation

Scanlines: Normal scanlines, depth to taste

 

 

It also depends what you consider the "correct" aspect ratio for SNES games. My take is that we played the original console on 4:3 TVs, so even though the SNES's internal aspect ratio is 8:7, a CRT would've stretched it to 4:3 anyway, so 1280x960 provides a perfectly scaled image in a proper aspect ratio.

I am using 1462x1200 @ 1080p60; SNES output of 224x256 displayed on a 4:3 display meant 8:7 pixel width:height, so at 5x scale, the width is multiplied by an additional 8/7 (256 x 5 x 8/7 = 1462). Disabled vertical interpolation because it's a clean multiple along the vertical axis.

[thirdkind]

I am using 1462x1200 @ 1080p60; SNES output of 224x256 displayed on a 4:3 display meant 8:7 pixel width:height, so at 5x scale, the width is multiplied by an additional 8/7 (256 x 5 x 8/7 = 1462). Disabled vertical interpolation because it's a clean multiple along the vertical axis.

 

Disabling vertical interpolation definitely provides a marginal increase in sharpness since it's an even multiple. Agree that it's better with it off. I don't know where my brain was on that one

 

I understand the rationale behind accommodating the 8:7 pixel ratio, but in the end, it comes down to personal preference. 1462x1200 is about 1.22:1, while 4:3 displays are slightly wider at about 1.33:1. While it does appear stretched (depending on the game...some compensated, others didn't), 1600x1200 is closer to what you would've seen on an actual 4:3 CRT back in the day. The difference is minor, though.

 

I'm just glad we got something we can tweak rather than being handed a few presets and forced into one compromise or another.

[Sho]

 

 

you and i both know who the author is. it doesnt take a genius to figure out why he cannot discuss it. its not a hack, it was planned. our anonymous author happens to be under an nda contract and working for company who cannot condone or support unofficial firmware due to legal issues. therefore the author cannot himself discuss it. smokemonster acted as a third party to disclose its existence, basically the wikileaks of analogue. but if you believe someone other than kevtris is responsible, you are deluding yourself.

 

 

What you're saying is fine and all, but it's outside of the scope of what I was saying. To us, yes, we have a good idea of who it is. However, for the person I was addressing, their angle of speculation fell upon not knowing who the developer might be for whatever reason. In this sense, I mentioned that if you want to trust the person who did the jailbreak, simply ensure that you can trust the middleman providing the download (which you can) -- you don't need to know who the person is, only trust that it's a legitimate jailbreak and not something malicious.

[Shadowgate]

 

 

Resolution: 1080p60

Width: 1600

Height: 1200

Vertical position: 45

Scaler: No scaler, enable both Horizontal and Vertical Interpolation

Scanlines: Hybrid scanlines, set depth to taste (I use 50)

 

 

Do you prefer the look of scanlines in 1080p vs 720p? When I use scanlines on 1080p they never seem to look right and the text gets lines through it. When I use the scanlines on 720 it looks more natural with the scanlines not going through text when using hybrid scanlines. I might just need to mess with it more

Edited February 16, 2018 by Shadowgate

[RupanIII]

Interesting.

What does the FPGA in the Super NT have headroom for?
Could it run a Neo Geo AES/MVS core?

 

unfortunately I can't. the ntm's FPGA is out of multipliers and blockrams for it.

[bikerspade]

Do you prefer the look of scanlines in 1080p vs 720p? When I use scanlines on 1080p they never seem to look right and the text gets lines through it. When I use the scanlines on 720 it looks more natural with the scanlines not going through text when using hybrid scanlines. I might just need to mess with it more

Have you tried adjusting vertical position?

I am using vertical position 54, horizontal position 38, width 1462, height 1200. Disabled vertical interpolation. Scanlines line up well but if you change the vertical position the scanlines won't line up correctly.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Interesting.

What does the FPGA in the Super NT have headroom for?

Could it run a Neo Geo AES/MVS core?

 

 

he had room left over for better scaling options etc, possibly future support for enhancement chips but idk what percentage of headroom is left over, only a lot more that nt mini, and a whole lot more affordable too...

[thirdkind]

 

Do you prefer the look of scanlines in 1080p vs 720p? When I use scanlines on 1080p they never seem to look right and the text gets lines through it. When I use the scanlines on 720 it looks more natural with the scanlines not going through text when using hybrid scanlines. I might just need to mess with it more

 

 

Are you using the settings bikerspade or I recommended? The best way to get clean scanlines on a 1080p display is to use 1080p output and adjust the vertical size so it's an even multiple of 240, with vertical interpolation disabled. You can either have zero overscan (960 vertical with empty space on all sides) or slight overscan (1200 vertical with a few SNES scanlines cropped top and bottom).

 

720p works well on a 4K display because it's an even multiple, but it looks awful on a 1080p display.

[Atariboy]

 

 

he had room left over for better scaling options etc, possibly future support for enhancement chips but idk what percentage of headroom is left over, only a lot more that nt mini, and a whole lot more affordable too...

 

 

Kevtris says this? So we've had it confirmed that a lot of excess capacity remains on the Super NT's FPGA, that we can expect improved scaling options, and that he's looking into enhancement chip support for SD rom loading in an upcoming patch?

Edited February 16, 2018 by Atariboy

[Kismet]

 

Kevtris says this? So we've had it confirmed that a lot of excess capacity remains on the Super NT's FPGA, that we can expect improved scaling options, and that he's looking into enhancement chip support for SD rom loading in an upcoming patch?

 

Kevtris said something alluding to the fact that there was plenty of space in the FPGA in the SuperNT, but obviously not enough to do native 4K. Which is fine, as 2160p60 4K screens appear to be a lot less miserable.

 

But he has said nothing about sd card loading or enhancement chips. The logical thing is for people to just hold their horses and quit bugging him about it. On one of the live streams people were asking about this stuff every minute or so. So I imagine he's getting bombarded with questions that he's already refused to answer, even places other than here.

[katanaswordfish]

From what I understand it's not possible to power the Super NT on or off remotely because of the way the power switch works, but would it be possible to create a sleep or low-power state? This way you could just leave your Super NT on all the same and just tell it to sleep at the end of each session. This could also help people who are running the JB firmware to remember to push their saves to their SD card when returning to the menu to put their console to sleep at the end of the session.

 

I'm thinking that while sleeping the chips might slow down, the display would stop updating, and the LED might dimly throb until the user presses start or something like that. Possible?

Edited February 16, 2018 by katanaswordfish

[Andromeda Stardust]

720p works well on a 4K display because it's an even multiple, but it looks awful on a 1080p display.

This is not true from my experience. I have found the AVS (which only does 720p) looks fabulous on my ultra low latency 1080p ASUS Monitor with 3x height and 4x width integer scale with 50% scanlines. It really depends on the quality of the scalar if your tv will look good or not. Also if your TV set is overscanning or molesting the signal in other ways, it can look worse.

 

I played around some of the Super NT settings tonight and moved the Super NT back to my bedroom to set up on my ASUS, because my mom is currently monopolizing the tv watching winter olympics coverage all day long. Yay for USA gold medals in the men's and women's snowboarding (half-pipe). Boo for gaming in the living room...

 

Currently I'm running it 5x vertical scale, 4:3 for 16x9 tvs, gamma boost on, and hybrid scanlines set to 100% (255) intensity. The effects are fantastic, and using the hybrid mode doesn't negatively affect the darkndss at all, even with maximum effect.

 

More observations. Configuration data ideally needs to be stored in a file on the SD card instead of console flash so we don't lose them everytime we update the system. Get those edid boot settings checked soon so the super nt won't give unusable signal if we don't swap it back to a compatible display format before switching tvs.

 

Jailbreak saving is currently unreliable. Last night I played a new file on Super Mario World + All Stars and got to the switch palace and saved. I jumped out to the menu and verified a save file was present for the game. Then I powered off, restarted the game from SD, and loaded the file. Mario was at the switch palace. I played through to Iggy's Castke, beat the first boss, saved, hit reset on the console, and my progress was still intact. Satisfied, I then backed out to the system menu before powering down. Today when I loaded my Mario Allstars Plus rom, I was back at the switch palace. It appears the first time the menu is accessed, a save file is generated. However the save file on the sd card is not overwritten on subsequent gameplay attempts, resulting in lost progress. So I would not at this time recommend attempting to play any adventure or rpg type games where saving is critical to progress. But just having access to over 2000 games without loading a cart is amazing.

 

I've also toyed with the splash screen delay settings a bit. I'm currently using an hdmi to dvi cable to run my asus monitor (the monitor only goes to standby mode with dvi input) and analog stereo audio split off using a monoprice hdmi switch. It takes a full 8-9 seconds for the display to wake from this setup, with audio starting about a second earlier than video. On my 720p living room Sanyo, I need a delay of only 4 seconds for the display to respond, and audio / video are simultaneous. The HDMI switch likely increases the sync time on thd ASUS but does not produce lag. The ASUS response time is 9ms. I have no idea what the Sanyo is but it's fast enough that I don't notice it.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Kevtris says this? So we've had it confirmed that a lot of excess capacity remains on the Super NT's FPGA, that we can expect improved scaling options, and that he's looking into enhancement chip support for SD rom loading in an upcoming patch?

Fact: Kevtris said it has extra capacity. Opinion: I believe that extra capavity possibly could be used for expansion chips. And yeah, the Super NT already has better scaling options (interpolation) compared to Nt Mini because Kevtris ran out of multipliers on the NT Mini fpga. Is that better? I tend to ramble, ie I stated a fact, then stated an opinion pertaining to that fact, in a single compound sentence. And you rightfully misunderstood my statement because it was poorly worded.

[thirdkind]

This is not true from my experience. I have found the AVS (which only does 720p) looks fabulous on my ultra low latency 1080p ASUS Monitor with 3x height and 4x width integer scale with 50% scanlines. It really depends on the quality of the scalar if your tv will look good or not. Also if your TV set is overscanning or molesting the signal in other ways, it can look worse.

 

Does the image fill the screen or do you have it set to 1:1 pixel mapping? If it's the latter, then I can see the scanlines coming out great, but if the display is scaling 720p to 1080p, I'm having a tough time imagining those scanlines being the same height from top to bottom. If the scaler is that good, then I'm impressed, especially for a built-in scaler in a PC monitor.

 

My 1080p plasma has fairly decent upscaling, but scanlines are very inconsistent with 720p when set to full screen. Even multiples at native resolution provide the best results.

Edited February 16, 2018 by thirdkind

[RabidWookie]

Am I the only one that thinks interpolation makes things too blurry to be worth using?