FPGA Based Videogame System

[CZroe]

Hey, is anyone able to trigger the Chris Houlihan Room in ALttP? I’m told that it’s also triggered when the game doesn’t know where to send the player, as a kind of error-handler. I’m wondering if the code to manually trigger it causes occasional glitches with other doors and the Super Nt just doesn’t handle it right.

[bozo55]

OK, my late-production E-rated copy of The Legend of Zelda A Link to the Past is still ZL-0.

 

The label revision is is ZL-USA-2 but that doesn’t indicates a ROM update, though obviously, some labels only came with some revisions.

 

Point is, the US game doesn’t seem to have ever had a revision. Back in the day I suspected that some X-Band players had an earlier version of the modem (5 lights instead of 3). I was playing in the early beta test for the first half of my time on the service.

 

If there is a -1 of the North American version then is suspect it’s for another region, like French Canada. There definitely is a -0 and -1 for the JPN version.

That's probably the case. Which would explain how a ZL-1 Rom could be on a SHVC-1A3B-12 board and a ZL-0 on a SHVC-1A3B-13. In any case, there still are variations in the cart since there's different RAM chips on different carts from what I've seen.

[paulrobinbrown]

 

I already did that. I spent another 10 minutes, in-out-in-out on the real cart, no crash, no lockup.

 

I then put the SAME cartridge and controller into the Super NT again, and this time it rebooted instead of locking up, after 4.5 minutes of exiting and entering. It's definitely repeatable.

 

EDIT: Ok, counted how many screen transitions and it looks to be about 75 on the real cart before I got it to reboot.

 

Status so far:

 

Repeatable on the SM pack LoZ ENG on SD2SNES 0.7.1d on SNT4.1 (locks up or reboots)

Repeatable on the SM pack LoZ JP on SD2SNES 0.7.1.d on SNT4.1 (reboots)

Repeatable with real LoZ cart on SNT4.1 (locks up or reboots)

 

Not repeatable on the SM pack with SD2SNES 0.7.1d on real SNES

Not repeatable with real LoZ cart on real SNES

 

Hey guys, yes I originally. reported the problem. It was actually my four year old son who left the house without picking up the lantern so I told him to go back. I tested it twice and it crashed both times, once with corrupted graphics, second time with just a black screen. I tested the PAL rom and cartridge and couldn't reproduce the issue.

 

I love the SuperNt so much that I'm skeptical that it can do what it does so well. Anytime I see something weird in a game I think is that a FPGA issue but every other time I check and it's perfectly replicating a real SNES. One example is that weird color change on the second level of the Lion King, start the level the background's blue, then it just changes to yellow/orange but the real game does this!

Edited February 20, 2018 by paulrobinbrown

[Kismet]

 

Hey guys, yes I originally. reported the problem. It was actually my four year old son who left the house without picking up the lantern so I told him to go back. I tested it twice and it crashed both times, once with corrupted graphics, second time with just a black screen. I tested the PAL rom and cartridge and couldn't reproduce the issue.

 

I love the SuperNt so much that I'm skeptical that it can do what it does so well. Anytime I see something weird in a game I think is that a FPGA issue but every other time I check and it's perfectly replicating a real SNES. One example is that weird color change on the second level of the Lion King, start the level the background's blue, then it just changes to yellow/orange but the real game does this!

 

This is the reboot on the Super NT FW4.1 with the real cart.

 

https://mega.nz/#!xiYniKDR!T3nXeqW_jwpA80QX-hpowfb7_iq4HvQJ7BPtXI47qY0

[trismegistus]

Hey, is anyone able to trigger the Chris Houlihan Room in ALttP? I’m told that it’s also triggered when the game doesn’t know where to send the player, as a kind of error-handler. I’m wondering if the code to manually trigger it causes occasional glitches with other doors and the Super Nt just doesn’t handle it right.

 

I have triggered it using the real cartridge on the Super NT. This was on an earlier firmware, though... whichever one was current as of February 11. The method I used was to start at the Sanctuary, dash out the front door, go east to the graveyard, push the tombstone, face down and use a bomb to blast myself backwards into the hole.

[Kismet]

That's probably the case. Which would explain how a ZL-1 Rom could be on a SHVC-1A3B-12 board and a ZL-0 on a SHVC-1A3B-13. In any case, there still are variations in the cart since there's different RAM chips on different carts from what I've seen.

 

https://snescentral.com/article.php?id=0164

 

Says there is a JP -0 -1 and -2

 

There is no known US -1 just -0

 

SNS-ZF-0 is the Canada French one, I do not have this version

SFRG-ZL-0 is the German version, I do not have this version either

SPAL-ZL-0 is the PAL English version. The Smokemonster PAL version I was not able to replicate the problem on the Super NT, but I also wasn't running it in PAL mode.

 

So I'm going to go with, it's a bug that exists in the NTSC versions.

[CZroe]

 

Hey guys, yes I originally. reported the problem. It was actually my four year old son who left the house without picking up the lantern so I told him to go back. I tested it twice and it crashed both times, once with corrupted graphics, second time with just a black screen. I tested the PAL rom and cartridge and couldn't reproduce the issue.

 

I love the SuperNt so much that I'm skeptical that it can do what it does so well. Anytime I see something weird in a game I think is that a FPGA issue but every other time I check and it's perfectly replicating a real SNES. One example is that weird color change on the second level of the Lion King, start the level the background's blue, then it just changes to yellow/orange but the real game does this!

PAL version doesn’t have the Chris Houlihan room, right?

 

I know what you’re talking about regarding perceiving differences that were actually there all along. [emoji4] After installing one of the very first DIY Hi-Def NES kits sold I immediately noticed a few weird things:

The dog only barked once in Duck Hunt when he barks three times on unmodified hardware (still does on a Hi-Def NES when you use analog).

A rectangular area around the eyes in a cut scene very late in the game Ninja Gaiden is wrong. It doesn’t strobe with the same colors as those around it.

https://youtu.be/xBF3kP2CL7Y

...so when I noticed that one log of many was missing the black border pixels in Super Mario Bros 3’s secret coin ship, I thought I had another Hi-Def NES glitch. NOPE! It never had those pixels on the original hardware either. [emoji4]

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/recently-noticed-this-on-the-smb3-coin-ship.2480818/

 

 

I have triggered it using the real cartridge on the Super NT. This was on an earlier firmware, though... whichever one was current as of February 11. The method I used was to start at the Sanctuary, dash out the front door, go east to the graveyard, push the tombstone, face down and use a bomb to blast myself backwards into the hole.

Thanks!

 

Not really relevant anymore, but my late-production E-rated copy of TLoZ is from 1998 or later (didn’t see any day codes newer than 1998 but I didn’t check everything).

Edited February 20, 2018 by CZroe

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

List in spoiler.

7th Saga, The

ABC Monday Night Football

Act Raiser

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Eye of the Beholder

Aerobiz

Aerobiz: Supersonic

Air Strike Patrol

Arcana

Bassin’s Black Bass

Big Sky Trooper

Bill Laimbeer’s Combat Basketball

Brain Lord

Brandish

Breath of Fire

Breath of Fire II

Cannondale Cup

Championship Soccer ’94

Chavez Boxing

Chrono Trigger

Civilization, Sid Meier’s

College Football USA ’97: The Road to New Orleans

College Slam

Dig & Spike Volleyball

Donkey Kong Country Trilogy

Dragon View: Drakkhen 2

Drakkhen

Dungeon Master

E.V.O.: Search for Eden

EarthBound

Emmitt Smith Football

Equinox

ESPN National Hockey Night

ESPN Speedworld

ESPN Sunday Night NFL

Exertainment Mountain Bike Rally

Extra Innings

F1 Pole Position

F1 ROC

F1 ROC 2: Race of Champions

FIFA Soccer ’96

F-Zero

FIFA Soccer ’97 Gold

Final Fantasy II

Final Fantasy III

Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest

Frank Thomas Big Hurt Baseball

Gemfire

Genghis Khan 2: Clan of the Gray Wolf

Goal!

Harvest Moon

Illusion of Gaia

Inindo: Way of the Ninja

Jimmy Houston’s Bass Tournament USA

Ken Griffey Jr. Presents MLB

Ken Griffey Jr.’s Winning Run

Kirby Super Star

Kirby’s Dream Course

Kirby’s Dream Land 3

Lagoon

Lemmings 2: The Tribes

Link to the Past, Zelda

Liberty or Death

Looney Tunes: ACME Animation Factory

Lufia & The Fortress of Doom

Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals

Madden NFL ’95

Madden NFL ’96

Madden NFL ’97

Madden NFL ’98

Mario Paint

Mark Davis’ The Fishing Master

Mecarobot Golf

MechWarrior

Metal Combat: Falcon’s Revenge

Might & Magic III: Isles of Terra

NBA Hang Time

NBA Jam Tournament Edition

NBA Live ’95

NBA Live ’96

NBA Live ’97

NBA Live ’98

NBA Showdown

NCAA Basketball

NCAA Final Four Basketball

NCAA Football

NFL Quarterback Club

NFL Quarterback Club ’96

NHL ’95

NHL ’96

NHL ’97

NHL ’98

NHL Stanley Cup Hockey

Nobunaga’s Ambition

Nobunaga’s Ambition: Lord of Darkness

Nolan Ryan’s Baseball

Obitus

Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen

Operation Europe: Path to Victory 1939-45

Paladin’s Quest

PGA European Tour Golf

PGA Tour ’96

PGA Tour Golf

Power Rangers Zeo: Battle Racers

Pro Sport Hockey

PTO 2: Pacific Theater of Operations

PTO: Pacific Theater of Operations

Riddick Bowe Boxing

Rise of the Phoenix

RoboTrek

Romance of the Three Kingdoms II

Romance of the Three Kingdoms III: Dragon of Destiny

Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV: Wall of Fire

RPM Radical Psycho Machine Racing

Secret of Evermore, The

Secret of Mana

Shadowrun

SimAnt

SimCity

SimCity 2000

SimEarth: The Living Planet

Soul Blazer

Sporting News Baseball, The

Stunt Race FX

Super Adventure Island 2

Super Baseball Simulator 1.000

Super Bases Loaded 2

Super Bases Loaded 3: License to Steal

Super Conflict

Super Mario All-Stars

Super Mario World

Super Mario All-Stars + World

Super Mario Kart

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars

Super Metroid

Super Play Action Football

Super Punch-Out!!

Tecmo Secret of the Stars

Tecmo Super Baseball

Tecmo Super Bowl

Tecmo Super Bowl II: Special Edition

Tecmo Super Bowl III: Final Edition

Tecmo Super NBA Basketball

Tin Star

TNN Bass Tournament of Champions

Troy Aikman NFL Football

True Golf Classics: Pebble Beach

True Golf Classics: Waialae Country Club

Twisted Tales of Spike McFang, The

Ultima VI: The False Prophet

Ultima VII: The Black Gate

Ultima: Runes of Virtue II

Uncharted Waters

Uncharted Waters: New Horizons

Uniracers

Utopia: The Creation of a Nation

Vegas Stakes

Wario’s Woods

Wayne Gretzky and the NHLPA All-Stars

Wicked 18 Golf

Wizardry V: Heart of the Maelstrom

World Cup USA ’94

World League Soccer

Xardion

Ys III: Wanderers From Ys

 

You're missing all the Super Famicom exclusives. There's a bunch of them.

[Thrakk]

RE: Link to the Past bug:

 

Are you guys running the game with extra sprites or overclock...?

 

Seems like the bug happens right when a bunch of new sprites are loaded. I dont have a Super NT yet so Im not sure what the menu options are exactly.

[CZroe]

RE: Link to the Past bug:

 

Are you guys running the game with extra sprites or overclock...?

 

Seems like the bug happens right when a bunch of new sprites are loaded. I dont have a Super NT yet so Im not sure what the menu options are exactly.

Nope. Extra sprites are disabled for me. Edited February 20, 2018 by CZroe

[bozo55]

Wonder if this is related to the SNES running at 60Hz vs 60.08. Doubt it would change anything if I had to guess.

[Thrakk]

Xp

Can you recreate the bug with extra sprites enabled?

[NE146]

Well I said I'd try it on a jap cart.. but the sd2snes was already popped in so I just started the US version in the Smokemonster pack. Using the old SNT Firmware, I started a new game, entered "Link" and went in and out of the house for about 4 minutes before I got bored. Not sure if that means anything...

[CZroe]

Xp

Can you recreate the bug with extra sprites enabled?

I’m still having trouble reproducing it on a real cartridge, though others already have. [emoji4]

 

Starting to wonder if there is another element, like a random phase or sync thing where some sessions just won’t do it and other sessions will trigger it eventually.

 

Edit: Case in point...

Well I said I'd try it on a jap cart.. but the sd2snes was already popped in so I just started the US version in the Smokemonster pack. Using the old SNT Firmware, I started a new game, entered "Link" and went in and out of the house for about 4 minutes before I got bored. Not sure if that means anything...

Edited February 20, 2018 by CZroe

[bozo55]

I’m still having trouble reproducing it on a real cartridge, though others already have.

 

Starting to wonder if there is another element, like a random phase or sync thing where some sessions just won’t do it and other sessions will trigger it eventually.

Like an HDMI handshake error?

[CZroe]

Like an HDMI handshake error?

Similar, but between other chips (or replicated chip logic).

[kevtris]

I think many of those weird random crashes are a result of the "fix' I did for mecarobot golf that is on the 4.1 firmware. I tinkered with the HDMA's and unfortunately it's possible for them to crash the system if things line up just right. ninja warrior just happened to cause it to happen nearly continuously, hence the game crashing if you pause or just let it run a little while. I did fix this bug (and a bunch of others) for the next release but I wanted to fix a few other things and add some new stuff before the next release.

[bozo55]

I think many of those weird random crashes are a result of the "fix' I did for mecarobot golf that is on the 4.1 firmware. I tinkered with the HDMA's and unfortunately it's possible for them to crash the system if things line up just right. ninja warrior just happened to cause it to happen nearly continuously, hence the game crashing if you pause or just let it run a little while. I did fix this bug (and a bunch of others) for the next release but I wanted to fix a few other things and add some new stuff before the next release.

Oooooh. I love the sound of new stuff! Loving the system, thanks so much!

[cfillak]

I'm not really hip to the SNES speedrunning scene, but I know alot of memory manipulation based glitches are very prevalent in the N64 scene. If there are similar well known glitches for SNES games it might be useful to get people familiar with them to put the Super NT through its paces with that kind of stuff to try to stomp out any subtle issues and discover edge cases.

Edited February 20, 2018 by cfillak

[bozo55]

I'm not really hip to the SNES speedrunning scene, but I know alot of memory manipulation based glitches are very prevalent in the N64 scene. If there are similar well known glitches for SNES games it might be useful to get people familiar with them to put the Super NT through its paces with that kind of stuff to try to stomp out any subtle issues and discover edge cases.

Would love to see the speedrunning community use the Super NT... it's perfect for capture and streaming. But we're talking about a group of people that will play a game in a foreign language even if it saves 1 second. So I doubt you'll see too many of them willing to put time into the system.

 

I think the Super NT will remain an enthusiast's system, and never go mainstream. I thought the lack of a true 60.08Hz mode was going to bother me but I was wrong. I've put enough time into the system now to conclude that one second lost over 10 minutes is nothing I would ever notice or care about. Only reason I know it's an issue is from the MLiG review. It's so good I'm considering paring down my collection of consoles and CRTs.

Edited February 20, 2018 by bozo55

[CZroe]

I'm not really hip to the SNES speedrunning scene, but I know alot of memory manipulation based glitches are very prevalent in the N64 scene. If there are similar well known glitches for SNES games it might be useful to get people familiar with them to put the Super NT through its paces with that kind of stuff to try to stomp out any subtle issues and discover edge cases.

I’ll check Donkey Kong Country. You can manipulate the value for what goodie/mount you have by tricking the game to reinitialize it back to Rambi.

 

I found this on my launch copy and fruitlessly tried to demonstrate to my friends on their copy that they received for Christmas 1994. It had only just launched in November 1994 so I know it was fixed very early on.

 

You get a goodie and go into a bonus round that also gives you a goodie. It will strip you of your goodie but remember what goodie you had. It remembers so that it can return it to you if you lose or leave without the new goodie, but it forgets what goodie you had as soon as you mount the new goodie inside the bonus round. If you dismount before leaving it will still remember that you had a goodie but the value will be reinitialize to Rambi.

 

Actually, since this works even with the same goodie it technically dumps that value when you dismount the new goodie but it was already overwritten when you mounted the new goodie.

[bozo55]

I’ll check Donkey Kong Country. You can manipulate the value for what goodie/mount you have by tricking the game to reinitialize it back to Rambi.

 

I found this on my launch copy and fruitlessly tried to demonstrate to my friends on their copy that they received for Christmas 1994. It had only just launched in November 1994 so I know it was fixed very early on.

 

You get a goodie and go into a bonus round that also gives you a goodie. It will strip you of your goodie but remember what goodie you had. It remembers so that it can return it to you if you lose or leave without the new goodie, but it forgets what goodie you had as soon as you mount the new goodie inside the bonus round. If you dismount before leaving it will still remember that you had a goodie but the value will be reinitialize to Rambi.

 

Actually, since this works even with the same goodie it technically dumps that value when you dismount the new goodie but it was already overwritten when you mounted the new goodie.

 

 

Still have my childhood copy from release day. Interesting stuff. Would be cool if you could post a video of it being done.

[CZroe]

 

 

Still have my childhood copy from release day. Interesting stuff. Would be cool if you could post a video of it being done.

Old video of mine. Original 1.0 version of the game, real cartridge on original hardware.

 

Jump to 4 minutes and 40 seconds:

https://youtu.be/P_rjLwJSj90

Earliest stage you can do it is in World 2 with turning Winky into Rambi.

Edited February 20, 2018 by CZroe

[DarkkOne]

Would love to see the speedrunning community use the Super NT... it's perfect for capture and streaming. But we're talking about a group of people that will play a game in a foreign language even if it saves 1 second. So I doubt you'll see too many of them willing to put time into the system.

I think as CRTs become harder to acquire, and fail more, the speedrunning community will probably move to something like the Super NT. They'll certainly come up with a solution for the frame rate issue. Emulation was originally largely banned because of inaccuracies, but in many cases now it's banned because of the ease of generating tool-assisted runs, or splicing multiple segments into a single segment in the emulator, so that the recording itself is unedited.

 

It'd be fairly simple to either just throw math at the resulting time or use the frame count on the video (since the number of frames rendered in zero latency mode is exactly the same, they're just rendered very slightly slower) instead of a clock time which is the only way to get extremely accurate run times anyway.

 

The speedrunning community may seem built around a lot of rules and such, but they're also pretty flexible at times as well. For example, recently, in Bioshock there was an early part of the game where something had a 5% chance of happening. If you didn't get it to happen, you had to start over. So that meant starting over an average of 19 times for every 1 run you actually continued with. They decided as a community it'd be valid to create a mod to guarantee that event happens because it's not the type of RNG where there are backup strats, alternatives, or anything. It's just a grind you repeat until you have a lone run you play through for timing. The mod ensures that the actual *run* happens, even though it's technically "cheating."

 

If they're willing to allow something like that, something like the Super NT is probably going to happen in time, as hardware failures and CRT costs threaten the ability for the community to grow or even maintain.

Edited February 20, 2018 by DarkkOne

[bozo55]

I think as CRTs become harder to acquire, and fail more, the speedrunning community will probably move to something like the Super NT. They'll certainly come up with a solution for the frame rate issue. Emulation was originally largely banned because of inaccuracies, but in many cases now it's banned because of the ease of generating tool-assisted runs, or splicing multiple segments into a single segment in the emulator, so that the recording itself is unedited.

 

It'd be fairly simple to either just throw math at the resulting time or use the frame count on the video (since the number of frames rendered in zero latency mode is exactly the same, they're just rendered very slightly slower) instead of a clock time which is the only way to get extremely accurate run times anyway.

 

The speedrunning community may seem built around a lot of rules and such, but they're also pretty flexible at times as well. For example, recently, in Bioshock there was an early part of the game where something had a 5% chance of happening. If you didn't get it to happen, you had to start over. So that meant starting over an average of 19 times for every 1 run you actually continued with. They decided as a community it'd be valid to create a mod to guarantee that event happens because it's not the type of RNG where there are backup strats, alternatives, or anything. It's just a grind you repeat until you have a lone run you play through for timing. The mod ensures that the actual *run* happens, even though it's technically "cheating."

 

If they're willing to allow something like that, something like the Super NT is probably going to happen in time, as hardware failures and CRT costs threaten the ability for the community to grow or even maintain.

 

Agreed. As CRTs become more scarce this may become the defacto standard. But there will be pushback from people that see the slightly slower timing as cheating. Eventually it will become the standard. A similar example is in the fighting game community. There was a time where anything other than the Coin-Op version of the game was shunned for tournament use... As arcade machines became more scarce, console versions of games eventually became the standard.