FPGA Based Videogame System

[cfillak]

Hopefully we get that FPGA dongle first. The Sega CD Model 2 looks hideous. I'm dreading the day my Model 1 bites the dust. I just did a recap and trace repair of my power board.

People, there's not going to be a Sega CD FPGA solution that in any way is the size of a "dongle". Look at the hardware that's in the Sega CD. It has its own 68K CPU. It's basically a second Genesis, it's not of a similar scope as the TG-CD/PCE-CD, which AFAIK provided a CD interface and a bit more RAM.

[Sbeehive]

Got my Super NT in.... Man the build quality is really staggering here. I thought I would miss the Zeus Stained Tears Aluminum (I forget who said that but kudos for that comment) a lot more. It looks absolutely stunning in action.

 

Some random thoughts:

 

1) What is the wizardry behind the sound quality? Linus Tech Tips talks about the sound somehow being broken down in a more "authentic" way that is somehow more true to the original composers' intentions... Can anyone else verify this? No other review mentions this that I've skimmed through.

 

2) Would it ever be possible to overclock Super FX chips via the Super NT itself? Not talking about FPGAing the FX chip itself.... Just an overclock so I don't have to mod Super FX games myself or pay through the nose. Speaking of that, it would also be cool if I could somehow apply translation patches through the NT itself (that is a bit of reach).

 

3) Can't wait to see how the Analogue DAC is going to look/function. I wonder if it could be adapted to do multiple consoles at once (even just Analogue's stuff)....

 

4) Whatever happened to those cart adapters for the NT Mini? I have some fringe 7800/Atari homebrews that I can't seem to get working (Draconian comes to mind).

 

5) Can't help but wonder what Kevtris is going to tackle next... I would buy the hell out of whatever comes next.

 

6) Personally speaking here, I would buy "boutique" options of the consoles they do make. Include the DAC onboard/alumnium body/a triple threat Sega (CD/32x included)/a super decked out Neo-Geo/a decked out TG-16/some kind of crazy Atari hyrbid. Who knows, an expensive all in one console of all of Analogue's stuff? It would look absurd but I'm getting tired of having 12+ consoles that need to be hooked up.

 

7) It is a damn shame they don't make CRT's anymore. An FPGA Vectrex would be awesome. I wonder if there could be a way of using a more modern display that could replicate the contrast ratio.

 

Sorry for the ramble here and if people have already mentioned this.... I stay on top of this thread as best I can!

 

 

 

 

EDIT:

Here is the video in question.

 

 

 

Edited February 17, 2018 by Sbeehive

[cfillak]

Got my Super NT in.... Man the build quality is really staggering here. I thought I would miss the Zeus Stained Tears Aluminum (I forget who said that but kudos for that comment) a lot more. It looks absolutely stunning in action.

 

Some random thoughts:

 

1) What is the wizardry behind the sound quality? Linus Tech Tips talks about the sound somehow being broken down in a more "authentic" way that is somehow more true to the original composers' intentions... Can anyone else verify this? No other review mentions this that I've skimmed through.

 

2) Would it ever be possible to overclock Super FX chips via the Super NT itself? Not talking about FPGAing the FX chip itself.... Just an overclock so I don't have to mod Super FX games myself or pay through the nose. Speaking of that, it would also be cool if I could somehow apply translation patches through the NT itself (that is a bit of reach).

 

3) Can't wait to see how the Analogue DAC is going to look/function. I wonder if it could be adapted to do multiple consoles at once (even just Analogue's stuff)....

 

4) Whatever happened to those cart adapters for the NT Mini? I have some fringe 7800/Atari homebrews that I can't seem to get working (Draconian comes to mind).

 

5) Can't help but wonder what Kevtris is going to tackle next... I would buy the hell out of whatever comes next.

 

6) Personally speaking here, I would buy "boutique" options of the consoles they do make. Include the DAC onboard/alumnium body/a triple threat Sega (CD/32x included)/a super decked out Neo-Geo/a decked out TG-16/some kind of crazy Atari hyrbid. Who knows, an expensive all in one console of all of Analogue's stuff? It would look absurd but I'm getting tired of having 12+ consoles that need to be hooked up.

 

7) It is a damn shame they don't make CRT's anymore. An FPGA Vectrex would be awesome. I wonder if there could be a way of using a more modern display that could replicate the contrast ratio.

 

Sorry for the ramble here and if people have already mentioned this.... I stay on top of this thread as best I can!

 

 

 

 

EDIT:

Here is the video in question.

 

 

 

 

2. I think the type of overclocking you're talking about is impossible. Overclocking an internal FPGA implementation of the SuperFX would probably be possible. People seem to be confused about translation patches. There is no clone console that applies translation patches "on-the-fly" to a cartridge. The Retron 5 dumps the cartridge to a ROM, applies the patch, then runs a software emulator to play the patched ROM. The Super NT reads data off the cartridge the same way a SNES does. It doesn't read the whole ROM at once so its not going to be able to patch the parts its reading on the fly. The NT Mini has the CopyNES feature, which allows you to dump your carts to ROM files on the SD card, which you can then apply translation patches to on your PC. You're not going to be able to play translations of SA-1 or other chip games until the SA-1 chip is implemented in the jailbreak core or on the SD2SNES.

 

3. I would hope a simple HDMI switch would work with the DAC, but that may be more complicated than I know.

 

4. I would definitely buy one of each of the adapters

 

5. Yeah I'm fully on board the Analogue/Kevtris train. The only thing I could see myself skipping is an Analogue Nt "Micro" redesigned plastic NES, because I already have an NT Mini. I would put money on the next project being a Genesis console.

 

6. I'm really glad they ditched aluminum actually. As much of a tank the NT Mini is, I always feel so nervous moving it around for some reason. It feels like an expensive luxury watch that I don't want to damage. The Super NT feels much more like something I could put in a bag and bring to a friend's place. I would still rather it have a built-in DAC, but I understand that as a business decision.

[Sbeehive]

 

 

6. I'm really glad they ditched aluminum actually. As much of a tank the NT Mini is, I always feel so nervous moving it around for some reason. It feels like an expensive luxury watch that I don't want to damage. The Super NT feels much more like something I could put in a bag and bring to a friend's place. I would still rather it have a built-in DAC, but I understand that as a business decision.

 

 

You know I kind of feel the same way about moving mine around.....Also: For some reason you mentioning the built-in DAC made me picture a "Voltron-like" situation where the Analogue console merges into this giant DAC casing.... That is definitely not how they will do it but the thought amused me.

[gorfcadet]

Kevtris,

 

Im a SEGA junkie, and will be there on day one for a Genesis FPGA, but for me, I need some kind of CD/32X solution. I dont mind a core system that can simply use real existing CD and 32X add ons since I have two or three of each, but it would need to still be able to at least run the 32X video through hdmi somehow.

 

Kevtris, could a real 32X or SCD piggyback a FPGA, or is that too much of a nightmare?

 

I know youre in neck deep with the snes firmware, but I thought Id ask. I know some are dismissive of the add ons, but they dont and shouldnt speak for everybody. There are more than five good games.

 

I do have one question about the nes and snes FPGAs. Is there some kind of workaround for the gun games? Could they be patched to work with wiimotes through the retro receivers? Mouse support with a crosshair? Even a new hdtv compatible light gun? Just wanted to know your thoughts.

[bootsector]

The Genesis 3, which was a cheap piece of garbage licensed by Sega long after the 16 bit era, didn't support Sega CD or 32X.

I was referring to real SEGA hardware. I believe it was the Genesis 2 that supported Sega CD but didn't support the 32x? Can't remember.

[cfillak]

Kevtris,

 

Im a SEGA junkie, and will be there on day one for a Genesis FPGA, but for me, I need some kind of CD/32X solution. I dont mind a core system that can simply use real existing CD and 32X add ons since I have two or three of each, but it would need to still be able to at least run the 32X video through hdmi somehow.

 

Kevtris, could a real 32X or SCD piggyback a FPGA, or is that too much of a nightmare?

 

I know youre in neck deep with the snes firmware, but I thought Id ask. I know some are dismissive of the add ons, but they dont and shouldnt speak for everybody. There are more than five good games.

 

I do have one question about the nes and snes FPGAs. Is there some kind of workaround for the gun games? Could they be patched to work with wiimotes through the retro receivers? Mouse support with a crosshair? Even a new hdtv compatible light gun? Just wanted to know your thoughts.

Sega Genesis units sold: 30.75 million

Sega Genesis library: 897 games

Sega CD units sold: 2.24 million

Sega CD library: 209 games

Sega 32X units sold: 665,000

Sega 32X library: 40 games

(All of these statistics are from Wikipedia)

 

My guess is that the Sega CD was successful enough and has a large enough library to justify Analogue addressing it with an additional hardware component in a future "Analogue MD/SG", ie including an expansion slot for a Sega CD unit. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think if you use a Genesis model 2 + SCD Model 2 combo, the stereo audio gets mixed automatically without any cables? Does the mixed stereo audio get sent out through the multi-out or do you still need to use the stereo RCA jacks on the SCD unit?

 

What would be required to make the 32X work via an Analogue MD's HDMI seems to be unlikely to happen. Analogue's announcement of their external DAC said it would be compatible with the Super NT and "future Analogue consoles". It seems like they're suggesting that no future consoles will have a built-in DAC, any any CRT enthusiasts should just buy the external box, which honestly makes alot of business sense. So for 32X to work you'd need the external DAC, and then some kind of wiring adapter to go from Dsub-15 to the Genesis mini-DIN (or whatever it's called), which would plug into the AV in on the 32X. To use the Analogue MD's HDMI you'd then need a port to plug the 32X's AV out into on the Analogue MD that would do an analog to digital conversion. I highly doubt they will include this extra component for an add-on that sold so poorly and has such a small library.

 

Luckily, if the Genesis FPGA core is programmed correctly, there's really nothing stopping the 32X add-on from working with analog video, as long as you have the external DAC.

 

My one request is that the external DAC should have an HDMI pass-through. Then you could switch between analog and digital video with a toggle like on the NT Mini. Then you could have the Analogue MD's HDMI passed through the DAC for playing Genesis/SCD games, and switch to "DAC mode" when you want to play 32X, and have the DAC fed into the 32X, and the 32X fed into an OSSC or other scaler. It's a messy, kludge solution that honors the original experience!

 

I think once an Analogue MD comes out and the Genesis core is polished and finalized, maybe sometime down the road in 5 years if/when Analogue rereleases 4K capable versions of all of their consoles, perhaps Kevtris will go back and try to address the whole Sega Sandwich entirely in FPGA.

Edited February 17, 2018 by cfillak

[SegaSnatcher]

Sega Genesis units sold: 30.75 million

Sega Genesis library: 897 games

Sega CD units sold: 2.24 million

Sega CD library: 209 games

Sega 32X units sold: 665,000

Sega 32X library: 40 games

(All of these statistics are from Wikipedia)

 

My guess is that the Sega CD was successful enough and has a large enough library to justify Analogue addressing it with an additional hardware component in a future "Analogue MD/SG", ie including an expansion slot for a Sega CD unit. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think if you use a Genesis model 2 + SCD Model 2 combo, the stereo audio gets mixed automatically without any cables? Does the mixed stereo audio get sent out through the multi-out or do you still need to use the stereo RCA jacks on the SCD unit?

 

What would be required to make the 32X work via an Analogue MD's HDMI seems to be unlikely to happen. Analogue's announcement of their external DAC said it would be compatible with the Super NT and "future Analogue consoles". It seems like they're suggesting that no future consoles will have a built-in DAC, any any CRT enthusiasts should just buy the external box, which honestly makes alot of business sense. So for 32X to work you'd need the external DAC, and then some kind of wiring adapter to go from Dsub-15 to the Genesis mini-DIN (or whatever it's called), which would plug into the AV in on the 32X. To use the Analogue MD's HDMI you'd then need a port to plug the 32X's AV out into on the Analogue MD that would do an analog to digital conversion. I highly doubt they will include this extra component for an add-on that sold so poorly and has such a small library.

 

Luckily, if the Genesis FPGA core is programmed correctly, there's really nothing stopping the 32X add-on from working with analog video, as long as you have the external DAC.

 

My one request is that the external DAC should have an HDMI pass-through. Then you could switch between analog and digital video with a toggle like on the NT Mini. Then you could have the Analogue MD's HDMI passed through the DAC for playing Genesis/SCD games, and switch to "DAC mode" when you want to play 32X, and have the DAC fed into the 32X, and the 32X fed into an OSSC or other scaler. It's a messy, kludge solution that honors the original experience!

 

I think once an Analogue MD comes out and the Genesis core is polished and finalized, maybe sometime down the road in 5 years if/when Analogue rereleases 4K capable versions of all of their consoles, perhaps Kevtris will go back and try to address the whole Sega Sandwich entirely in FPGA.

Sega CD audio gets mixed internally with Model 1 Genesis as well. There is no need to use the Sega CD's audio outs unless for some reason you don't like the extra filtering the Genesis adds to Sega CD music when using the 3.5mm jack on the Genesis.

Edited February 17, 2018 by SegaSnatcher

[cfillak]

Sega CD audio gets mixed internally with Model 1 Genesis as well. There is no need to use the Sega CD's audio outs unless for some reason you don't like the extra filtering the Genesis adds to Sega CD music when using the 3.5mm jack on the Genesis.

I guess I must have been misinformed by this:

 

https://www.destructoid.com/blogs/able+to+think/the-mess-that-is-hooking-up-the-sega-trio-482195.phtml

 

I know the Genesis model 1 outputs mono audio only via the multi-out, but I don't know what happens with Sega CD audio. Why is that mixing port even there?

 

Edit: Oh I didn't read the whole article I just saw the final cable setup. It describes the audio degradation/filtering that happens.

 

Edit 2: JFC what an overengineered mess.

Edited February 17, 2018 by cfillak

[ghogan42]

Kevtris mentioned fixing up the scanlines and maybe adding corner masking. And there was some discussion pages back about scanlines with non-integer scaling. So I figured I'd post something about how I do scanlines on the low-powered gpus on the Raspberry Pi 3 and the SNES Classic.

First of all, at 720P (240P stretched to the full 720P), we get a perfect 3x vertical scale which results in scanlines without aliasing or artifacts.

And at 1080P (240P stretched to the full 1080P) we get a 4.5x scaling which means uneven and ugly scanlines.

Or does it?

Just like the linear filter that kevtris implemented to eliminate shimmer on scrolling, you can eliminate a lot of the ugliness of the scanlines at 4.5x vertical scaling by using a better scanline algorithm. All you have to do to make it look decent is to not have high frequency detail in your scanlines. You just need blurrier scanlines and that's really all there is to it. Just like blurrier scaling (every algorithm is blurrier than nearest neighbor) saves us from shimmer when the graphics scroll.

Over the last year I wrote some pixel shaders to do scanlines + aperture mask + screen curvature on the Raspberry Pi 3 and also the SNES Classic. To get full speed on this kind of hardware I had to have pixel shaders that execute in around 13-14 clock cycles on the Snes Classic and around 16-17 cycles on the RPI3. That includes the scanlines along with an aperture mask, curvature, and a linear filter with adjustable sharpness. So the number of clock cycles I had for just the scanlines was pretty low.

Nevertheless, I managed to make my shader look good at non-integer scaling factors and also vary the scanline thickness (and darkness) based on the pixel brightness.

That's pretty much what the hybrid mode of the SuperNT does too. But the SuperNT's scanlines don't look good at 4.5x scaling. So I'm going to describe how I do my scanlines and how I would make it faster if I needed to. I have no idea whether the SuperNT has the performance budget to do it how I do. And I have no idea if kevtris would want to anyway. And I'm certainly not telling him how he should be doing things. But he said on the stream a couple of days ago that he was meaning to fix up the scanlines and maybe this could give him an idea or two.

Part 1: How I do it in my shader.

Take the "y" texture coordinate (varies from 0 to 1.0 across the texture) and multiply it by the number of pixels (240 or 224...). That tells you what scanline you're in ( i.e. 130.267).

Take the fraction part of this and subtract 0.5 (i.e. 0.267-0.5 = -0.233). Now you have a number in [-0.5,0.5]

Calculate the weights of two different scanline profiles. Here's the profiles I uese by default but they are controlled by a parameter. Ignore x-values outside of [-0.5 , 0.5].

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1r4ap_GxmNFVis9Fx3GVucmL9N1u1mDPj/view?usp=sharing

 

Then multiply the pxiel color by a mix of each profile based on how bright the pixel is.

Here's pseudocode for the process:

//User controlled Constants
const float DarkConst = 6.0;
const float BrightConst = 8.0;
const float Boost = 1.1;
//

const float Height 240.0

float3 Color = GetTexel( position );

float Y = position.y * Height;
Y -= 0.5;

//To minimize the calculations
float YY = Y*Y;
float YYYY = YY*YY;

//Calculate Scanline Profiles
float SLDark = Boost - DarkConst*(YY - 2.05*YYYY);
float SLBright = 1.0 - BrightConst*(YYYY - 2.8*YYYY*YY);

float Luma = 0.3333*(color.r + color.g + color.b); //Any kind of brightness works. Just take the green channel if you want...

//Apply the scanline
color = color * mix( SLDark, SLBright, Luma); //just linear mix of the profiles.

Here's what it looks like:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/12-auksKKlw0-78caUUYh2nX4rMgLArvf/view?usp=sharing

 

Notice that the scanlines don't look uneven despite the non-integer scaling that's been done. And please disregard the vertical stripes as they are a simple (too simple) monochrome "aperture mask" effect that has nothing to do with the scanlines.

 

If I needed to speed this up a bit, I'd drop the second scanline profile and have something like:

//User controlled Constants
const float DarkConst = 3.0;
//

const float Height 240.0

float3 Color = GetTexel( position );

float Y = position.y * Height;
Y -= 0.5;

//To minimize the calculations
float YY = Y*Y;
float YYYY = YY*YY;

//Calculate Scanline Profile
float SLDark = 1.0 - DarkConst*(YY - 2.05*YYYY);

//Apply the scanline
color = color * SLDark;

And if I couldn't afford that even that much computation either then I'd just assume that main use case wouild be for 4.5x scaling at 1080P and simply pull the scanline weights out of a array that I've precomputed. You'd need an array with 9 elements for the weights for 4.5x scaling, and 4 elements for 4x and 5 elements for 5x scaling. I could put up code to compute the weights, but basically you just calculate the weights using the formulas above and stop computing elements once the weights start looping.

Anyway, sorry for interrupting the arguments about Nintendo lawsuits and anonymous firmware authors but maybe someone will find this entertaining or interesting. I'm not trying to evangelize or anything. I just wanted to show people that scanlines don't have to look bad with non-integer scaling. Even if the SuperNT doesn't have the horsepower to do it. Which I assume it doesn't because I doubt the fpga can compete with even a simple GPU.

Here's some links to my glsl shader code:

https://github.com/ghogan42/common-shaders/blob/zfast_shaders/shaders/zfast_crt_standard.glsl

Here's a version with curvature and corner masking (kevtris mentioned masking the corners):

https://github.com/ghogan42/common-shaders/blob/zfast_shaders/shaders/zfast_crt_curve.glsl

Edited February 17, 2018 by ghogan42

[CZroe]

 

 

As far as the diagonals, yeah, they are very easy to hit...causes the biggest issues on something like Contra that you need to shoot down/forward and then suddenly duck.

 

There's a tape mod for the older 8bitdos that is supposed to help. You can Google for some pictures on Reddit and the like. They are super easy to open up and work on. I've been fiddling on and off for a few days with a tape mod, but haven't quite gotten it where the diagonals are harder to hit for something like Contra, but not too hard for something like Street Fighter II.

 

Got pretty close though. Feel like I'll get there eventually.

It kind of sucks that for $40 the controllers have a design defect and it seems this has been an ongoing issue with their controllers. They must know about it and they choose to correct it?

The NES Classic Edition controller has the same exact issue and I paid $90 for one of those (despite the $10 MSRP). Point is, even Nintendo can't get it right. Makes Kirby's Adventure a pain when Kirby keeps puffing up to float and you're only trying to change directions of double-tap to run.

OHAIGUYS. Finished my video on the subject:

 

https://youtu.be/gO9w1uzgZvI

 

D-pad swap pretty much resolves the issue with unintended diagonals. You can probably put a sticker or something underneath the old D-pad if you don’t have an original lying around. Let me know if that works out for anyone.

Edited February 17, 2018 by CZroe

[Radfoo]

OHAIGUYS. Finished my video on the subject:

 

 

D-pad swap pretty much resolves the issue with unintended diagonals. You can probably put a sticker or something underneath the old D-pad if you don’t have an original lying around. Let me know if that works out for anyone.

Looks good, where did you get those new shells from? Thanks.

[F34R]

Ugh. Trying to go through the thread for some good settings when using this on my 4k tv and 1080p monitor.

[NE146]

So maybe this is a dumb time to ask the question.. but I guess it's always been in the back of my mind. Why do people like scanlines.. or rather, what is the advantage of them?

 

For all I can tell it puts lines across the screen... and I guess it looks fine.. but, and what? Is that all it's for?

[CZroe]

Looks good, where did you get those new shells from? Thanks.

Thanks.

 

An arcade operator hoarded them for years and then someone associated sold them on eBay over a year and a half ago (maybe two). I bought the last full sets but they had various other parts too, like the shells without the buttons.

 

When I asked the seller only explained that much. I don’t know why an arcade operator needed these unless they were spares for a Super System arcade machine or perhaps the pads/cables were used to make pad-hack control panels for CPS2 machines (IIRC, some used SNES controller ports). Not sure why they wouldn’t use a kick harness but, then again, not sure why they have SNES controller ports on some machines in the first place.

 

Anyway, they are the older style with colored L & R buttons but new enough that they have reinforcement ribs for the controller cable’s internal routing posts (older versions didn’t). By the end of 1993 they had stopped coloring in the L & R markings so at least I know that these are from 1993 or earlier. The marked L & R buttons could have disappeared even before 1993... I just know my first SNES was late 1993 stock and it had blank L & R buttons.

 

Definitely not replica/counterfeit. I’ll try to find the seller for you in case they still have anything left.

 

So maybe this is a dumb time to ask the question.. but I guess it's always been in the back of my mind. Why do people like scanlines.. or rather, what is the advantage of them?

 

For all I can tell it puts lines across the screen... and I guess it looks fine.. but, and what? Is that all it's for? [emoji14]

In certain situations they can increase the perceived resolution and actually improve text readability and other detail.

 

Back in 2003 I noticed that I couldn’t make out the squirrel on the title screen to 1080 Avalanche with component cables and progressive scan on my XBR910. It’s looks like a blob of squares on the absolute best quality television on the planet. As soon as I switched to 480i, it looked like a squirrel! I switch to S-video and it still looked like a squirrel. Yes: 480i S-video actually looked better than 480p component.

 

Think about a low-res black circle on a white background with all the jagged stair-stepped pixels forming the perimeter. Now imagine if it was twice the vertical resolution but every other line was covered by a scanline. You brain will still perceive those missing pixels and see it as being that much smoother. When you line-double instead, you make the smaller pixels chunkier and everything gets more blocky.

Edited February 17, 2018 by CZroe

[Shadowgate]

So maybe this is a dumb time to ask the question.. but I guess it's always been in the back of my mind. Why do people like scanlines.. or rather, what is the advantage of them?

 

For all I can tell it puts lines across the screen... and I guess it looks fine.. but, and what? Is that all it's for?

Not a dumb question. People like scan lines because it recreates the look of crt televisions. These old consoles are designed around crt televisions and their limitations and you are not meant to be playing them on crystal clear modern displays. Scan lines create a unique look and the art was designed with them in mind. People like to recreate this look for that authentic feel or simply because that's how they remember the game.

 

There are various schools of thought but a popular opinion is that you should only be playing these games on crt displays. Scan lines provide a middle ground to people with modern displays. Try it some time. Dial in the scan lines and crop a bit of the image like a crt would. You'll be experiencing the game exactly how the developers intended. If it's better or worse is a personal opinion. You may notice pixel art start to make more sense when scan lines are added. Things come into focus. The art was designed knowing scan lines would be there so it doesn't always look right without them.

Edited February 17, 2018 by Shadowgate

[GreenMonkey]

OHAIGUYS. Finished my video on the subject:

 

 

D-pad swap pretty much resolves the issue with unintended diagonals. You can probably put a sticker or something underneath the old D-pad if you don’t have an original lying around. Let me know if that works out for anyone.

 

I bought a spare SNES controller at a local gameshop and tried swapping, diagonals were still not great. Didn't make a huge difference as far as I could tell. The contacts on the PCB are the problem, as they aren't at all like Nintendo's.

 

http://i.imgur.com/vbePRGCl.jpg

I've had better luck with the tape mod, I'm still tinkering with mine to see if I can get it right.

Edited February 17, 2018 by GreenMonkey

[CZroe]

 

I bought a spare SNES controller at a local gameshop and tried swapping, diagonals were still not great. Didn't make a huge difference as far as I could tell. The contacts on the PCB are the problem, as they aren't at all like Nintendo's.

 

http://i.imgur.com/vbePRGCl.jpg

 

I've had better luck with the tape mod, I'm still tinkering with mine to see if I can get it right.

My brother has definitely noticed that it still registers the occasional errant direction but it is MUCH closer to the original SNES. Heck, I couldn’t stop throwing barrels/partners up in Donkey Kong Country 2 with the old pad so you don’t need to be as hard on it as him to notice the difference. [emoji6]

 

I was having trouble pulling off the most basic moves in Killer Instinct until we did this. I’d say it was unplayable before and perfectly playable now, though an original SNES controller is a bit better.

 

Regarding the contacts, I’m pretty sure they changed over the years on the official controllers too. They definitely did for the NES.

Edited February 17, 2018 by CZroe

[Kismet]

So maybe this is a dumb time to ask the question.. but I guess it's always been in the back of my mind. Why do people like scanlines.. or rather, what is the advantage of them?

 

For all I can tell it puts lines across the screen... and I guess it looks fine.. but, and what? Is that all it's for?

 

Some people like the look of it for some reason, and IMO, it's something you'd do if you're trying to replace a CRT experience, but that's just something you will always fall short on, since CRT's came in a bunch of different shapes and color phosphors used. I don't personally like seeing the scanlines on anything except when the intent is to go "this is a CRT". Much in the same way you see film grain or sepia/black+white in a "flashback" in a film, despite film grain hasn't really been a thing since the 80's as well. There's even "VHS" filters that people use to make digital video look crappy for the purpose of going "this was supposedly recorded in 1984" . So to that extent the purpose of scanlines is to give people that vintage 1985 feeling by degrading the video.

[katanaswordfish]

OHAIGUYS. Finished my video on the subject:

 

 

D-pad swap pretty much resolves the issue with unintended diagonals. You can probably put a sticker or something underneath the old D-pad if you don’t have an original lying around. Let me know if that works out for anyone.

 

I love everything about my older model 8bitdo controller except for the dpad. It's a little bit disappointing to hear that they still haven't improved it. It's definitely not terrible or anything, and I was able to get mitigate it a bit with a small square of scotch tape, but it's really a black mark on what would be otherwise a great controller.

 

To anybody interested in the tape method, it's pretty amazing how much of a difference a small piece of tape can make - while the factory controller makes it too easy to hit diagonals, I found electrical tape to be slightly too think for my taste, making diagonals a bit too hard to do for games like Street Fighter. I found the scotch tape to provide a happy medium although still not 'perfect'. I also kind of wonder how it will hold up over time. I do wish that 8bitdo would save us all some time and just try to improve their dpad slightly.

Edited February 17, 2018 by katanaswordfish

[katanaswordfish]

So maybe this is a dumb time to ask the question.. but I guess it's always been in the back of my mind. Why do people like scanlines.. or rather, what is the advantage of them?

 

For all I can tell it puts lines across the screen... and I guess it looks fine.. but, and what? Is that all it's for?

 

Personally I think that pixel art just looks better with subtle scanlines. I don't really care that much recreating a CRT look or anything, It's just a personal preference that I feel is part of aesthetic of pixel art.

[cfillak]

So maybe this is a dumb time to ask the question.. but I guess it's always been in the back of my mind. Why do people like scanlines.. or rather, what is the advantage of them?

 

For all I can tell it puts lines across the screen... and I guess it looks fine.. but, and what? Is that all it's for?

Imo scanlines help out alot more for NES and other 8-bit games than SNES/Genesis. NES graphics are often very sparse and fake scanlines help to break up the visual "sameness" on display, especially when scaled up to a high resolution on a large display. SNES and Genesis games had more detailed sprites, backgrounds and animations than their 8-bit counterparts, so scanlines aren't as necessary imo. I still usually play with them on though. Scanlines can also really help out the look of early 3D games.

[Sbeehive]

 

Personally I think that pixel art just looks better with subtle scanlines. I don't really care that much recreating a CRT look or anything, It's just a personal preference that I feel is part of aesthetic of pixel art.

 

Something about scan-lines done right seems to give the pixels more depth and presence. At least to my eyes.

[Jakir]

So maybe this is a dumb time to ask the question.. but I guess it's always been in the back of my mind. Why do people like scanlines.. or rather, what is the advantage of them?

 

For all I can tell it puts lines across the screen... and I guess it looks fine.. but, and what? Is that all it's for?

The short answer is that scanlines provide a smoothing effect on the image by breaking it up so your eye doesn't see all the hard edges, but it goes much deeper than that into proper aspect ratios and resampling and all kinds of stuff. This is a good article to give a read if you are interested in more info:

https://nfgworld.com/mb/thread/660-Aspect-Ratios-Scanlines-and-Modern-Displays

 

 

 

[CZroe]

 

I love everything about my older model 8bitdo controller except for the dpad. It's a little bit disappointing to hear that they still haven't improved it. It's definitely not terrible or anything, and I was able to get mitigate it a bit with a small square of scotch tape, but it's really a black mark on what would be otherwise a great controller.

 

To anybody interested in the tape method, it's pretty amazing how much of a difference a small piece of tape can make - while the factory controller makes it too easy to hit diagonals, I found electrical tape to be slightly too think for my taste, making diagonals a bit too hard to do for games like Street Fighter. I found the scotch tape to provide a happy medium although still not 'perfect'. I also kind of wonder how it will hold up over time. I do wish that 8bitdo would save us all some time and just try to improve their dpad slightly.

I had most of their older controllers except for the SFC/SNES style and I was impressed with them. I had assumed their SFC/SNES pads were just as good. Seeing “2.4GHz” molded into the plastic of the D-pad tells me that they changed something (why else distinguish it?) and I assumed that change was what caused the problems. Hearing that they both have problems is disappointing.

 

Nintendo did improve in this aspect with the SNES Classic Edition D-pad when compared to the NES Classic Edition but, unlike the NES CE, SNES CE can’t do a board swap with an original SNES controller.