FPGA Based Videogame System

[kwnage]

I was testing my new tv for pal 50hz settings. Booted Super Mario World European in pal hardware mode, zero delay, 50hz 720p/1080p output. Getting stutters and graphical artifacts that I can't really explain, especially when hitting a hint box. I am using jb6.5 firmware if that's any consolation.

 

Tested this with my PAL Super Mario World cart. No stutters or glitches when in PAL mode. I noticed the hardware mode was reset to NTSC after switching to 1080p/50hz, so I had to set it to PAL again. Other than that, everything is running fine. Also no glitches when running either the 1.0 or 1.1 PAL ROMs of Super Mario World in PAL mode using the jailbreak.

 

Also 1.0 will run fine in NTSC mode, since the screen height isn't adjusted. Although it'll be quite a bit faster than normal.

1.1 will glitch out in NTSC mode, because the screen height has been adjusted for PAL.

 

This behaviour is exactly the same with original hardware.

Edited March 5, 2018 by kwnage

[Retro Reloaded]

Quick question:

 

I know how to set the hardware to PAL mode but should I also be setting the resolution to 50hz in order to get the most accurate results or is that automatically switched over to the proper resolution when you select PAL?

[kwnage]

You'll have to switch to 50hz in order to get stutter free gameplay, it won't switch to 50hz automatically. Other than that it'll run fine even it's set to 60hz. Also many PAL games can be played in NTSC mode if they're not optimised for PAL.

Edited March 5, 2018 by kwnage

[Retro Reloaded]

Seems like that should be set to change automatically when switched to PAL mode anyway. At least for displays that support 50hz.

[kwnage]

Yeah, I wondered if there's a SuperCIC equivalent in there (I saw a PIC 16F630 if I recall correctly) or if it's implemented in the FPGA. It would certainly be able to detect the game's region and switch accordingly like a SuperCIC would do on real hardware. The SD2SNES even detects a SuperCIC in the SuperNt but can't switch resolutions by itself. Seems like it's being ignored.

Edited March 5, 2018 by kwnage

[Sho]

Don't know whether this is a bug/glitch or not.

 

While playing the Kirby Super Star's Megaton Punch mini game, during the scene that shows your Max Megaton Punch score the purple background will flash randomly. I'm am running the Super Famicom cart.

 

Here's a video I shot to show what I'm talking about. I mean it obviously isn't a game breaking bug or anything, but I thought you'd might like to know anyways.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo4Dyr-8c6w&feature=youtu.be

 

Tested US Super Star in both a 1CHIP and the Super NT -- same bug happens in both of those as well.

[Andromeda Stardust]

You won't get a gradual change in color with those values but it should work nicely. The final 8 frames of red are redundant though and past the 256 limit so it may not read them.

 

My planned improved rainbow palette idea will smoothly transition through every primary, secondary, and tertiary color on the color wheel with a relatively consistent brightness.

Added three new LED patterns.

 

Custom Super NT LED Patterns By Kosmic Stardust.zip

 

Here are a selection of three LED patterns I created for use with the Super NT.

 

Kosmic Rainbow = Improved rainbow pattern with saturated colors using a linear ramp. Much better saturation than the K-Pro rainbow.

 

SNEZ Police = Pattern strobes red, blue, and white emulating police warning lights. Recommended speed setting: 16

 

Pi Chaos = The first 1536 hexadecimal digits of Pi (after the decimal point) in binary format. Kind of a flicker fest. Recommended speed setting: 1

 

Copyright 2018 by Alfred J. Williams aka Kosmic Stardust.

 

Permission is granted to redistribute the .zip archive with the included readme file.

 

Yeah I screwed up counting. Gotta implement a limit anyways.

Regardless, that's just a mockup. I haven't written then output routine yet or tested anything on the real thing.

I'll see how it goes.

 

/Edit: Got a few test patterns

Awesome. Will try them out later.

 

EDIT: I really liked your purple pattern the best out of all of them. "Unpleasant" isn't really unpleasant at all. And our independently created rainbows seem very similar except yours rotates backwards like the K-Pro default.

 

Typing in 768 bytes longhand into a hex editor (and the math involved with incrementing and decrementing hex values in multiples of 3) was exhausting though. Gradients can be a pain to create without scripts. I also plan to do a "pulsing" rainbow that fades each color to and from black.

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

Tested this with my PAL Super Mario World cart. No stutters or glitches when in PAL mode. I noticed the hardware mode was reset to NTSC after switching to 1080p/50hz, so I had to set it to PAL again. Other than that, everything is running fine. Also no glitches when running either the 1.0 or 1.1 PAL ROMs of Super Mario World in PAL mode using the jailbreak.

 

Also 1.0 will run fine in NTSC mode, since the screen height isn't adjusted. Although it'll be quite a bit faster than normal.

1.1 will glitch out in NTSC mode, because the screen height has been adjusted for PAL.

 

This behaviour is exactly the same with original hardware.

I was swapping settings out a lot. I may have inadvertently been running in NTSC mode, not really sure what happened. It is also possible swapping hardware modes during the game caused it to glitch up.

[kevtris]

you can put your patterns into /patterns/ off the card root if you want to keep them out of the root. it will look in /patterns/ first and if not found default to the root.

[Schizophretard]

Added three new LED patterns.

 

Custom Super NT LED Patterns By Kosmic Stardust.zip

 

Here are a selection of three LED patterns I created for use with the Super NT.

 

Kosmic Rainbow = Improved rainbow pattern with saturated colors using a linear ramp. Much better saturation than the K-Pro rainbow.

 

SNEZ Police = Pattern strobes red, blue, and white emulating police warning lights. Recommended speed setting: 16

 

Pi Chaos = The first 1536 hexadecimal digits of Pi (after the decimal point) in binary format. Kind of a flicker fest. Recommended speed setting: 1

 

Copyright 2018 by Alfred J. Williams aka Kosmic Stardust.

 

Permission is granted to redistribute the .zip archive with the included readme file.

 

Awesome. Will try them out later.

 

EDIT: I really liked your purple pattern the best out of all of them. "Unpleasant" isn't really unpleasant at all. And our independently created rainbows seem very similar except yours rotates backwards like the K-Pro default.

 

Typing in 768 bytes longhand into a hex editor (and the math involved with incrementing and decrementing hex values in multiples of 3) was exhausting though. Gradients can be a pain to create without scripts. I also plan to do a "pulsing" rainbow that fades each color to and from black.

SNEZ Police sounds bad ass. I'm imaging it on a black Super Nt with a Decepticons logo sticker on it.

[Mattelot]

*waves hands*

 

My NT mini went to a blank/black screen 3 times while playing Zelda 2. Each time, I was either dying or casting a spell (screen flashes normally when you do those things). Anyone had anything like this happen? Analogue didn't reply to my support email.

[Andromeda Stardust]

SNEZ Police sounds bad ass. I'm imaging it on a black Super Nt with a Decepticons logo sticker on it.

I think it would look rad on a clear console, a real attention getter.

 

Strobe pattern:

 

EDIT: Last night when I went to bed, I thought up a much easier way to create custom LED patterns than to hand type them into a hex editor. Create a 256x1 pixel 24-bit RGB bitmap of your desired pattern using a common image editor like MS Paint, Photoshop, or GIMP, then use the hex editor to delete the bitmap header.

[infinest]

Awesome. Will try them out later.

 

EDIT: I really liked your purple pattern the best out of all of them. "Unpleasant" isn't really unpleasant at all. And our independently created rainbows seem very similar except yours rotates backwards like the K-Pro default.

 

Typing in 768 bytes longhand into a hex editor (and the math involved with incrementing and decrementing hex values in multiples of 3) was exhausting though. Gradients can be a pain to create without scripts. I also plan to do a "pulsing" rainbow that fades each color to and from black.

Thank you.

Unpleasant honestly looked way worse when I had the gradient drawn in my application compared to reality.

I'll also have to make color blending a toggleable option per keyframe so I can do stuff like your police pattern. That does look pretty neat!

Edited March 6, 2018 by infinest

[NE146]

*waves hands*

 

My NT mini went to a blank/black screen 3 times while playing Zelda 2. Each time, I was either dying or casting a spell (screen flashes normally when you do those things). Anyone had anything like this happen? Analogue didn't reply to my support email.

 

This happened on an actual cart right.. does it also occur on the ROM? just curious.

[mancomb]

This system, and the tech support behind it, is simply superb. Thank you guys at Analogue and Kevtris for re-igniting my (all of ours) interest in the SNES. With the advent of LCD tvs, and the consequently terrible display quality of pre-hd game systems, I sold off my childhood collection years ago. With the release of the Super Nt, I've been re-buying all my old favorites, and enjoying the hell out of the experience. These days we have access to all our old favorites via emulation and devices like the SD2SNES. However, like others have mentioned, having direct access to ALL the games at one time spoils us for choice, and makes it hard to commit to playing just one game for any length of time. Playing the games on cartridge format, on the other hand, reinforces good playing habits, and I find myself sticking to just one game at a time; enjoying them as I used to when I was a kid. Additionally, with the advent of new-issue reproduction carts (meaning, new-production pcbs), we are able to by and play rare games at affordable prices, which would otherwise be out of reach. What an exciting time to be getting back into classic gaming!

[Mattelot]

 

This happened on an actual cart right.. does it also occur on the ROM? just curious.

 

It was an actual cart. I'm terrified to test it out further. I just didn't know if anyone else had their NT mini just got to a blank/black screen and require a reboot.

[F34R]

 

It was an actual cart. I'm terrified to test it out further. I just didn't know if anyone else had their NT mini just got to a blank/black screen and require a reboot.

I got around to it, and playing off the cart and rom, I didn't have any issues after about an hour of each.

[cowabunga]

This system, and the tech support behind it, is simply superb. Thank you guys at Analogue and Kevtris for re-igniting my (all of ours) interest in the SNES. With the advent of LCD tvs, and the consequently terrible display quality of pre-hd game systems, I sold off my childhood collection years ago. With the release of the Super Nt, I've been re-buying all my old favorites, and enjoying the hell out of the experience. These days we have access to all our old favorites via emulation and devices like the SD2SNES. However, like others have mentioned, having direct access to ALL the games at one time spoils us for choice, and makes it hard to commit to playing just one game for any length of time. Playing the games on cartridge format, on the other hand, reinforces good playing habits, and I find myself sticking to just one game at a time; enjoying them as I used to when I was a kid. Additionally, with the advent of new-issue reproduction carts (meaning, new-production pcbs), we are able to by and play rare games at affordable prices, which would otherwise be out of reach. What an exciting time to be getting back into classic gaming!

I agree with this.

 

The SD2SNES and having all the games on one SD card is cool and all, but it's just not for me. It would take the fun out of trying to track down actual carts imo. I would feel like I'm cheating myself.

 

I realize it will be way more expensive in the end, but nothing will ever beat having an actual physical cart collection with their beautiful art works sticking out of the top of the Super NT (or SNES). It just feels so right.

[Mattelot]

I got around to it, and playing off the cart and rom, I didn't have any issues after about an hour of each.

 

I'm not sure if my progress has anything to do with it. I'm 7/8/8 and on the sea palace. I'll have to play for a while on the ROM and see if anything happens.

 

Thank you

[DarkkOne]

I agree with this.

 

The SD2SNES and having all the games on one SD card is cool and all, but it's just not for me. It would take the fun out of trying to track down actual carts imo. I would feel like I'm cheating myself.

 

I realize it will be way more expensive in the end, but nothing will ever beat having an actual physical cart collection with their beautiful art works sticking out of the top of the Super NT (or SNES). It just feels so right.

I like collecting the games, but then using the SD2SNES to play them so that I'm never worried about a battery failure losing me a game in-progress. At least for any games with SRAM. I'd still kill for a feature that backed up SRAM to/from your cartridge.

[F34R]

I agree with this.

 

The SD2SNES and having all the games on one SD card is cool and all, but it's just not for me. It would take the fun out of trying to track down actual carts imo. I would feel like I'm cheating myself.

 

I realize it will be way more expensive in the end, but nothing will ever beat having an actual physical cart collection with their beautiful art works sticking out of the top of the Super NT (or SNES). It just feels so right.

 

I feel the same way, but have the SD2SNES as well, so I have something to use while I search for reasonable sales, etc., instead of overpaying for carts.

 

 

I'm not sure if my progress has anything to do with it. I'm 7/8/8 and on the sea palace. I'll have to play for a while on the ROM and see if anything happens.

 

Thank you

I'll play some more this evening and put more time into it.

[NE146]

I'll never get rid of my carts.. simply because I suck at selling stuff (I don't think I've ever sold a single thing in my entire life). That said, I realized long ago that there's not much impetus for me in popping out the Actraiser cart or Blazing Lazers Hucard, and swapping in something else, when I can just have one cart inserted (or jb on the fpga consoles) and switch from a menu. I mean are you kidding me. That's the kind of stuff we had been dreaming about for decades prior.. emulation notwithstanding.

[Toth]

Yeah, other than for nostalgic or sentimental reasons, about the only reason to really hang on to cartridges I think is if you like to speedrun. I feel like if I was going to speedrun a game for an actual WR I would want to show I am using original everything regardless of how accurate an FPGA is. I suppose it might not matter much for a lot of longer games but a game like Super Mario Bros. where the record can come down to single frames I would want real hardware. I mean I know different communities have different rules regarding speedrunning and the equipment or even emulators used but that's how I would do it personally so there could be no question about my times.

Edited March 6, 2018 by Toth

[infinest]

Well, it's thrown together in a haste but the application works well enough for me as it is right now so I'm not gonna invest any more time into it.

Here's how the interface is looks:

 

 

 

Works simple enough. Choose a duration, click "Add new key", choose a color and confirm to add a new key frame.

Color of a key frame can be changed by double clicking an entry.

Double right click to delete an entry.

Clicking on an entry with the middle mouse button changes the length of it to the number currently entered into the duration field.

Drag and drop entries to change the order.

The "Blend" checkbox decides whether or not the color will be blended into the next one in it's duration.

The .pat file can be saved by clicking "Export"

 

https://www.virustotal.com/de/file/2b34fa93fa19430c3eb52eff1636d97e0dd4fb438c2549f078a96e0cd442d770/analysis/1520369128/

Analogue SNt PAT EDITOR.rar

Edited March 6, 2018 by infinest

[KRiSX]

received my super nt yesterday, what a well built piece of hardware!

 

now I just need to decide on how i'm going to run it... it looked amazing on my 75" at 1080p but I am a bit of a fan of scanlines so I'm probably leaning towards 720p and trying to find the right settings around that

 

tried the cheat code support out too, seemed to work well running SMW via my SD2SNES... only thing that I'm kinda curious on is having it remember cheat codes? would be great if i didn't have to enter in the code each time, I'm guessing I'd have to enter it, enable it and save the system settings for it to stay? alternatively I guess I could just chuck a cheat file on the SD2SNES for the game I want it to apply to and ignore the built in stuff... it's great having so many options to achieve the desired result!

Edited March 6, 2018 by KRiSX