FPGA Based Videogame System

[killersquirel]

I think the sega market is large, but with all the genesis flashbacks that have come out for the last decade or so that has diminished the need. An FPGA accurate system is exciting for people like us that are into the classics and know what FPGA systems are, but most people that are itching to play some genesis games have had their fill with both the flashback and genesis comps that have come out on Playstation and Xbox platforms. What I think you might be missing on a Neo Geo FPGA is that back in the 90s there where many that would have loved to get a Neo Geo but the price point at the time made it a no go. Those people that may have wanted a Neo Geo then might be excited to get another chance and pick up a FPGA Neo Geo, especially with the possible ability to play the games off of an SD card through a jailbreak firmware.

I would personally love to see a Neo Geo come out next, and would love for it to have the ability to have the Universe bios either included in the console or available as an additional purchase that could be placed on the SD card. I'm also not sure where you came up with the thought that a FPGA Neo Geo would cost $500?

[CZroe]

The only "elephant" was the illicit materials found within the carts. You know what I'm talking about...

My lawyer has asked that I not discuss this with you any further. [emoji6]

 

My lawyer is also imaginary.

 

I will gladly eat crow if the Genesis isn't the next system to come out. Mega CD and 32x were commercial failures. The market for bare bones Genesis carts is enormous compared to CD or 32X. Very few people who purchaeed a Sega Genesis or Mega Drive ever got the clutzy add-ons. They barely worked on the original system and looked fugly, so I can see why Kevtris/Analogue would not support such a device, especially as it would drive up production costs and only be as reliable as the original failutre prone add-on hardware. It was a bad idea for Sega to support it in the early-mid 90s, and still a bad idea for Analogue to attempt to do so today.

The thing is, they were still part of the platform’s history and Kevin is right to believe that some people will be disappointed that there still isn’t a way to play them on a modern system with HDMI. We aren’t the usual run-of-the-mill mainstream gamers, you know? The oddities and obscurities have their own special appeal.

 

One thing that would take the sting out of not supporting failed bastardized add-ons would be to throw a bone to PAL gamers and provide an additional SMS cart slot out of the box. It would be very easy to add FPGA support for SMS, FM sound, and also play SG-3000/1000 and Game Gear carts using a physical adapter, or roms via jailbreak firmware.

...ooooor...

 

...it could be a Neo Geo with a Genesis cart slot out of the box. [emoji6]

 

You are asking for a Neo Geo FPGA instead. Do you have any idea how small the market is, compared to Genesis? There's probably 2% the marketshare for Neo-Geo than Genesis, and Analogue would be severely limiting their market. Analogue could sell boatloads more Sega "Doo-Dee"s at a $200 proce point, at higher net profit margin, than Neo-NTs for $500. Which option will net more profit for Analogue? Sell 200 Neo NTs at $500 ea, or sell 5000 Mega NTs, er Doo-Dees at $200 ea?

Remember: They have a thing for the niche audiences, and I’m not just talking about their several thousand dollar gold-plated Analogue Nt. Surely, we didn’t forget the other Nts and the CMVS systems before that. [emoji6] The Super Nt is the first product of theirs where they’ve seriously considered making changes to broaden the appeal... and it’s still a joke to call it “mainstream.” The SNES Classic Edition is mainstream, not the Super Nt! You can find AtGame Sega Genesis at department stores that don’t even carry video games, which is way more “mainstream” than they could ever hope to get with a Mega Analogue Gs or whatever. For their audience, Sega CD and 32X would definitely increase the appeal, but it probably isn’t feasible and they aren’t interested.

 

There is a reason why the Analogue MVS is discontinued. After the two dozen or so Neo Geo MVS/AES collectors preorder theirs, production numbers will plummet.

...even if it also has a Genesis slot and a jailbreak? [emoji6] You’re arguing against yourself here, since I suggested that including Neo Geo and Genesis together made more sense from the start. Much of the work spent developing Neo Geo support would help with adding Genesis support (again: same X68000 and Z80). If they make a Sega machine first, they will likely try to get it licensed by Sega.

 

SNK sees a market for the Neo Geo Mini, and a jailbroken Analogue NG would be everything the fans demanded since the Neo Geo X Gold failed to impress (NG Mini certainly doesn’t deliver much better). There’s also the possibility that SNK would license their FPGA Neo Geo and sell it with games, just like Neo Geo X Gold and Neo Geo Mini. Even without such agreements, a jailbreak that essentially turns it into a NeoSD Pro with Neo Geo system would undoubtedly get a lot more interest than a measles CMVS. I’d speculate that it could get even more interest than Neo Geo X Gold or Neo Geo Mini ever had.

 

Going back to the Sega CD and 32X, part of your argument seems to accept Kevtris at his word that he’s not going to do those, but in the same breath he basically said that it was why he wasn’t interested in doing a stand-alone Sega console. Sorry, but that was a part of the context I can’t ignore, and it makes perfect sense if he was working on a Neo Geo, with or without a Genesis core. If it launched without a Genesis core, perhaps we’d see it in a JB, since the situation isn’t the same as the Super Nt.

 

Thanks for giving me the context to share my reasoning. [emoji4]

Edited September 19, 2018 by CZroe

[SegaSnatcher]

I think the sega market is large, but with all the genesis flashbacks that have come out for the last decade or so that has diminished the need. An FPGA accurate system is exciting for people like us that are into the classics and know what FPGA systems are, but most people that are itching to play some genesis games have had their fill with both the flashback and genesis comps that have come out on Playstation and Xbox platforms. What I think you might be missing on a Neo Geo FPGA is that back in the 90s there where many that would have loved to get a Neo Geo but the price point at the time made it a no go. Those people that may have wanted a Neo Geo then might be excited to get another chance and pick up a FPGA Neo Geo, especially with the possible ability to play the games off of an SD card through a jailbreak firmware.

 

I would personally love to see a Neo Geo come out next, and would love for it to have the ability to have the Universe bios either included in the console or available as an additional purchase that could be placed on the SD card. I'm also not sure where you came up with the thought that a FPGA Neo Geo would cost $500?

FPGA Genesis will still sell much better than a Neo-Geo. Yes many Genesis clones exist, but there is not true high quality clone made for Modern TVs. Casuals aren't interested in paying Analogue prices anyways so they were never going to be the target market. Super NT didn't sell to a bunch of casuals.

[CZroe]

I see. The beef is that once a hobbyist is co-opted by corporate religion, the creativity and support in a product diminishes. Kevtris' skill is 100% hobby generated - now under corporate control.

LOLWUT?!

Typical blind anti-capitalism propaganda.

 

https://youtu.be/xGn55BRyDSk

 

...but it just feels right to blame GREED!

 

I already checked under your bed. The corporate devil boogeymen aren’t going to be bothering you tonight. Sleep well.

 

Seriously though: money is how we decide if something is worth it to us. We give it value. The choice is still ours as long as we are free. It’s worthless semantics to behave as if money influencing our decision makes it some evil slave master. It’s our own needs and desires influencing us... as it should be. Money is incentive. It makes thing happen, and that’s a good thing.

Edited September 19, 2018 by CZroe

[CZroe]

1. Yes it does. I've set my option so that it asks every time wether or not i want to save since I don't want it to reset my game everytime i go to the menu and it saves.

• Save ingame
• Go back to menu
• Click yes when it asks you to backup save ram

2. The NES30 controller i got with my NT Mini seems to be broken in some way. After some time of use it will start massively lagging. Like +1 Second of input lag. So maybe try using another controller if you're using the one it came with.

My old FC30 I bought myself for example works without any issues.

Could the controller be reconnecting/rebooting during those laggy moments?

[Andromeda Stardust]

FPGA Genesis will still sell much better than a Neo-Geo. Yes many Genesis clones exist, but there is not true high quality clone made for Modern TVs. Casuals aren't interested in paying Analogue prices anyways so they were never going to be the target market. Super NT didn't sell to a bunch of casuals.

 

Thank you.

 

The enthusiast market for a Neo Geo type device is much smaller than Czroe implies. The economies of scale making the Super NT affordable will definitely work for Mega Doo-Dee Sega 8/16-bit device. Yes, Genesis had failed add-ons, but 85-90% of the best games for the platform came out as plain Jane Genesis/MD carts, or had better versions released for Saturn.

 

Any true Sega diehard would be happy to own an FPGA Sega machine, even if it means keeping the old Genesis kicking around with it's cd/32x tumorous growths and multiple power bricks. Like I didn't toss the old NES, Famicom, and SNES just because I bought the AVS and Super NT.

 

And face it. There are a lot more Sega fans out there. Kevtris is gonna build whatever Analogue commissions him to build, and Analogue is more likely to commission something with good mainstream support and healthy fanbase.

[Tanooki]

I think the Neo Geo is being understated a bit, but not that badly, it is smaller. But really Sega has been so badly both watered down and done a disservice by ATGames for over a decade now it would be kind of hard to pitch that other than to a select group wanting and knowing what a FPGA is. Hell I think you'd have an easier time cobbling together some chinese market parts to make a modern Gameboy/Color FPGA device, still handheld, like a Supaboy S is or something. I think you'd have a solid market on that even more so when you factor in some of the franchises it is noted for not to mention Pokemon too. Those tools at hyperkin who finally got one right with the Supaboy S have stalled out working on a GB unit which looked like a promising black and white only gb pocket clone. They must have felt there was an easy market there, but when Nintendo updated some old trademark or something with copyright they just appeared to have backed off.

[SegaSnatcher]

I think the Neo Geo is being understated a bit, but not that badly, it is smaller. But really Sega has been so badly both watered down and done a disservice by ATGames for over a decade now it would be kind of hard to pitch that other than to a select group wanting and knowing what a FPGA is. Hell I think you'd have an easier time cobbling together some chinese market parts to make a modern Gameboy/Color FPGA device, still handheld, like a Supaboy S is or something. I think you'd have a solid market on that even more so when you factor in some of the franchises it is noted for not to mention Pokemon too. Those tools at hyperkin who finally got one right with the Supaboy S have stalled out working on a GB unit which looked like a promising black and white only gb pocket clone. They must have felt there was an easy market there, but when Nintendo updated some old trademark or something with copyright they just appeared to have backed off.

The market for cheap Chinese clones and Premium FPGA solutions are not at all the same. Analogue caters to a specific market of retro gamers, those who want a high quality experience via a modern display. There could be a million different chinese Genesis clones and it would have zero affect on how well an Analogue MegaGen would sell.

[Andromeda Stardust]

The market for cheap Chinese clones and Premium FPGA solutions are not at all the same. Analogue caters to a specific market of retro gamers, those who want a high quality experience via a modern display. There could be a million different chinese Genesis clones and it would have zero affect on how well an Analogue MegaGen would sell.

 

Adding to that, what Tanooki said about the Atgames junk, is terrible, even for casuals. Sonic 3 is just so gut wrenching, it makes me want to rip my eardrums out.

 

My Super Retro Trio by comparison, has minor issues on the NES side, but nearly flawless Genesis and SNES implementation. Atgames is by no means representative of even established clone companies such as Hyperkin and Retrobit. It's worst of the worst on the Genesis end.

 

And everytime I see GameXChange trying to pass off an Atgames Genesis clone for the same $50 full retail price of an actual Sega Genesis, it makes me want to kick a puppy. Believe me, I want to see Genesis done right for a change...

[Tanooki]

I'm not saying analogue is cheap chinese junk level, but given what the SNT priced out as, there's definitely room there to get a price even lower with an actual well working distribution network of them and that would get it down to the level of casuals buying the shitty Retron5 for $150+ at retail to play their old games. It's not entirely unreasonable to think a level of quality could be had that standard normal people would pay into it, definitely not the past with the $400 and up old NES and MVS style stuff as that really was boutique snooty level extreme fan pricing. Analogue used to only cater to those types, but when they went plastic and fell under the $200 price point they are now into a whole other phase of their potential existence.

[Pixelboy]

I'm not saying analogue is cheap chinese junk level, but given what the SNT priced out as, there's definitely room there to get a price even lower with an actual well working distribution network of them and that would get it down to the level of casuals buying the shitty Retron5 for $150+ at retail to play their old games. It's not entirely unreasonable to think a level of quality could be had that standard normal people would pay into it, definitely not the past with the $400 and up old NES and MVS style stuff as that really was boutique snooty level extreme fan pricing. Analogue used to only cater to those types, but when they went plastic and fell under the $200 price point they are now into a whole other phase of their potential existence.

I still say Analogue's "potential existence" would be taken to the next level if they created an "arcade console": An FPGA machine that would accept custom cartridges that would contain both the actual (licensed) arcade ROM set of an arcade game, and the custom FPGA core required to run that ROM set. Then you'd have different levels of cartridges, from the "budget" ones like Pac-Man, Pepper II, Time Pilot, Centipede, etc., to the more expensive arcade games like Altered Beast, Final Fight, Street Fighter II, Out Run, R-Type, and plenty of others I'm not thinking of right now.

 

The base console would need a strong FPGA setup and a huge chunk of RAM, but I believe it's not outside the realm of technical feasibility. And all those arcade cartridges would become instant collectibles. Heck, they could even offer rotatable screens as a deluxe set, for when you want to play TATE arcade games with the proper screen orientation, or alternate controllers (like a trackball controller, or a paddle controller for playing Arkanoid, or a dual-joystick controller for playing Robotron 2084 and Space Dungeon).

 

Any way you look at it, you gotta admit there's a huge potential market right there.

[CZroe]

I still say Analogue's "potential existence" would be taken to the next level if they created an "arcade console": An FPGA machine that would accept custom cartridges that would contain both the actual (licensed) arcade ROM set of an arcade game, and the custom FPGA core required to run that ROM set. Then you'd have different levels of cartridges, from the "budget" ones like Pac-Man, Pepper II, Time Pilot, Centipede, etc., to the more expensive arcade games like Altered Beast, Final Fight, Street Fighter II, Out Run, R-Type, and plenty of others I'm not thinking of right now.

 

The base console would need a strong FPGA setup and a huge chunk of RAM, but I believe it's not outside the realm of technical feasibility. And all those arcade cartridges would become instant collectibles. Heck, they could even offer rotatable screens as a deluxe set, for when you want to play TATE arcade games with the proper screen orientation, or alternate controllers (like a trackball controller, or a paddle controller for playing Arkanoid, or a dual-joystick controller for playing Robotron 2084 and Space Dungeon).

 

Any way you look at it, you gotta admit there's a huge potential market right there.

...and it would make sense to do the cartridge-based systems first... like Neo Geo.

 

I honestly can’t see them hiring Kevtris or others to reverse engineer a bunch of different arcade boards that weren’t used for a ton of different games because that’s a ton of work for very few supported titles, but there are a lot of classics that share the same boards, like DK, DK Jr, etc. Many older classics like those have hardware similar enough to his existing cores that they may be relatively easy to add.

 

If CPS/CPS2 can be done, well, we already see that Capcom is willing to license Classic arcade titles for re-release. We also know that Sega whores their stuff out to any partner they can find, so their System/Model-whatever boards would be cool to add.

 

Unfortunately, any of those is probably as difficult as 32X and Sega CD, and many of the same arguments against doing them in FPGA apply. They’ve never been out-right dismissive of Neo Geo like they have been with Gen/MD, and it has come up when discussing what’s possible, so it’s got the highest chance, for sure.

[Jurai]

SEGA has dropped AT Games for their Megadrive Mini apparently and is working with a japanese dev instead - https://www.polygon.com/platform/amp/2018/9/19/17878298/sega-mega-drive-mini-genesis-release-date-delay

[CZroe]

SEGA has dropped AT Games for their Megadrive Mini apparently and is working with a japanese dev instead - https://www.polygon.com/platform/amp/2018/9/19/17878298/sega-mega-drive-mini-genesis-release-date-delay

Sounds like the same dev they use for the latest collection. Means it’s going to be an emulation box like all the other classic minis from Nintendo, SNK, Sony (as of today), etc. Wonder if that means we lose the ability to play original carts.

[Jurai]

Sounds like the same dev they use for the latest collection. Means it’s going to be an emulation box like all the other classic minis from Nintendo, SNK, Sony (as of today), etc. Wonder if that means we lose the ability to play original carts.

 

Did they originally say it would play carts, can't recall. The problem with these classic mini consoles is the price point they are aiming at, they can't fund a full blown clone of the original hardware at the price points that a random consumer at target is going to bite at

[Keatah]

I like the old days. The days where engineers did more than just try to fit parts together. Today it seems more is spent on marketing and debating price-points than actually designing and building a product. Then they wonder where the money goes.

Edited September 19, 2018 by Keatah

[CZroe]

I like the old days. The days where engineers did more than just try to fit parts together. Today it seems more is spent on marketing and debating price-points than actually designing and building a product. Then they wonder where the money goes.

Coca-Cola pioneered this for modern market practices long ago. Brand first and leave the final product to someone else. Specialization is modernization. We owe virtually all of our modern advances to it, but this required a medium of exchange: Money. See? It’s not the root of all evil! It’s the root of all progress.

 

 

Did they originally say it would play carts, can't recall. The problem with these classic mini consoles is the price point they are aiming at, they can't fund a full blown clone of the original hardware at the price points that a random consumer at target is going to bite at

I don’t think they ever said that but it was from AtGames and they typically do. Cartridge slot would have to be larger in proportion, and it doesn’t look like it is, so probably wasn’t going to play original carts.

 

 

I believe that's one of the reasons why super NT is cheaper than the NT mini. ...

I think the elephant in the room was that milled aluminum shell, but the omission of analog probably also streamlined the design process and removed a lot of redundant components.

I’m sure the removal of any bundled 8bitdo products helped keep the price down.

 

I just don't see FPGA CD consoles as being feasible. One could always connect a SATA port for CDROM access though. Then there's the BIOS issues that most CD consoles have to worry about. That might actually be doable with an FPGA PC Engine, but the Sega CD was too complex to quote Kevtris.

If an FPGA can serve as an ODE, it could also use a USB CD-ROM for dumping the image it emulates. It doesn’t have to be any kind of native drive interface. Edited September 19, 2018 by CZroe

[CZroe]

Regarding the ODEs for the PC-Engine, the SSD3 suffers from middling RGB and audio quality and the company behind it, TerraOnion, is rather hostile toward critics. The UperGrafx is more expensive and should have better video quality via DVI, but there aren't a lot of reviews of it and it is made by a Japanese developer. The Turbo EverDrive v2 is just a HuCard flash cart, it does not support any kind of Tennokoe save system or anything beyond a Super System Card. There is a promising device called the HuDebug that can simulate an ODE via the HuCard slot, but it is also being made by a Japanese developer.

The HuDebug guy lives in Taiwan.

 

IIRC, Terra Onion is from Spain. Regardless, English isn’t their native language, since that seems to be the focus here.

 

I'm fine with the 8-bit Do pads for the most part but you have to admit they are way too sensitive on the diagonals (and yes I know about the tape fix but just saying). It's not really a factor for most games but there are certain times.. e.g. when climbing a vine in SMB2(US), it's pretty easy to veer left or right when all you're trying to do is push straight up. [emoji1] ... among other examples.

NES Classic Edition controllers have the same problem unless you do a D-pad swap with an original NES controller. Edited September 19, 2018 by CZroe

[infinest]

Could the controller be reconnecting/rebooting during those laggy moments?

I don't know for sure but the fact that the led on the controller and the receiver stay solid tells me the connection is kept up at least, right?

[Andromeda Stardust]

SEGA has dropped AT Games for their Megadrive Mini apparently and is working with a japanese dev instead - https://www.polygon.com/platform/amp/2018/9/19/17878298/sega-mega-drive-mini-genesis-release-date-delay

'Bout damn time...

 

They really need to put something out that's actually on par with the Nintendo Classics.

[brentonius]

Alrighty, lots of nice speculation here. So let's end the speculation now. Here is what Analogue is really working on. And it's gonna blow your minds and surprise you, just like the Super NT did. Aaand you won't miss the Analogue NT Mini... trust me.

 

***Get this***

 

What is it?

"It" is really two versions of the same thing... The working name for it is the Analogue Interface X. It comes in a cheaper X8 and more expensive X16 model (Named the Analogue Interface X8 and the Analogue Interface X16).

 

The X8 has eight input ports and one HDMI out. The X16 has sixteen input ports, and two HDMI outs (for video capture I guess). You can choose between 1080p or 4K output.

 

Each input port takes a variety of video signals, and is HDMI shaped; it will accept any RGB, component, VGA, or HDMI input. Each Interface X comes with a variety of proprietary cables you select yourself upon check-out at their online store. You can select a SNES, Genesis, PC Engine, Saturn, or any other cable for your favorite system... One end of the cable looks like the end of an old school system's cable (for the older system of your choice) and the other end looks like an HDMI cable.

 

In short, what this awesome box does, is it combines an RBG scart switcher, HDMI switch, and uses the open source scan conversion we see on the OSSC (yes, totally lag free) to a sweeeeet HDMI out. The obvious great thing about this all is that it reduces clutter, you don't have to go out and buy scart cables, and you can connect all 8 (or 16) of your consoles to ONE freaking box that does everything for you automatically. I love that you just hook up everything from a Super Nintendo to a PS4 and it automatically outputs it LAG FREE!

 

There are two cherries on top...

 

1) The Menu (GUI)

 

So, that stuff I mentioned above all is awesome and amazing, but coming from Kevtris and Analogue, you can only expect the very best...! Right!? Yeah, sooo let's talk about the menu. The MENU. Oh, Graphical Interface Goodness (which the OSSC kind of lacks). It looks beautiful, is retro-video game themed, colorful, and customizable. It has two modes, default-mode (which most people will likely use, with Kevtris approved presets) and advanced-mode which offers everything the OSSC does... and more! 3x, 4x, 5x, scanlines (they look great btw) and other options...

 

2) It has an SD card slot... and an FPGA core... just wait for it...

 

So, remember how I mentioned it doesn't do composite? Well. Analogue decided to support the older composite-only systems in another way. The FPGA core inside this wonderful machine is basically the inside of an Analogue NT mini. Insert an SD card, select Console-Mode, choose core, play games!

 

The (minimal) sort-of kind-of Bad News

 

- No support for composite or coax oddly enough, but I suppose that doesn't matter much?

- No analogue video out, only HDMI out... I guess they are pretty into digital out? Cool with me...

- No cheaper unit with only 1080p... oh well. Future proof?

 

So yeah! Pretty cool right?!?!

 

And I'm just speculating here too. I have absolutely no evidence to back it up, other than a daydream I had about the perfect thing that Analogue could make. Maybe someday they'll read this, and it comes true? One could only hope... Come on Kev.. I know you're readin' this

[vanfanel]

@brentonius:

 

[Andromeda Stardust]

@brentonius:

 

I must admit, Brewtonius had me fooled for a minute...

 

I also loved that Simpson's episode. Classic.

[Reaperman]

So I've got a very minor bit of NT Mini wonkiness with this janky "repro" cart from (here). It's a cart of the homebrew Blade Buster (link), which works just fine via jailbreak as a rom, but only displays a baby blue screen from cart. Though the cart does work great on my FC Mobile II. "Because china" is probably the start and end of the repro mystery, but outside of not working on the NT Mini, it looks really nice inside, and since I really like opening and photographing repro carts, it's below. I wonder what's tripping it up. The NT Mini doesn't seem to have the number of compatibility settings to mess with like the Super NT does--and I did try turning the sprites down to stock. (seems to be the only possibly relevant setting)

 

 

 

China's really been stepping it up with some nice looking internals lately.

 

 

 

I also wonder if mapper 30 is mature enough to start considering for NT Mini jailbreak support. I bought nesmaker's official mapper 30 flash solution (link), but to flash somebody elses' .nes file to it is a holy nightmare, so I'm lightly begging for an easier solution. (I'm sure I'll figure it out) But there's a lot of neat NESMaker stuff coming out, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who wants an easy way to get in on playing some of that.

 

Curious how even RetroUSB's powerpak doesn't support mapper 30, since the internet seems to think RetroUSB is where it came from.

Edited September 22, 2018 by Reaperman

[Andromeda Stardust]

So I've got a very minor bit of NT Mini wonkiness with this janky "repro" cart from (here). It's a cart of the homebrew Blade Buster (link), which works just fine via jailbreak as a rom, but only displays a baby blue screen from cart. Though the cart does work great on my FC Mobile II. "Because china" is probably the start and end of the repro mystery, but outside of not working on the NT Mini, it looks really nice inside, and since I really like opening and photographing repro carts, it's below. I wonder what's tripping it up. The NT Mini doesn't seem to have the number of compatibility settings to mess with like the Super NT does--and I did try turning the sprites down to stock. (seems to be the only possibly relevant setting)

 

 

 

China's really been stepping it up with some nice looking internals lately.

 

 

 

I also wonder if mapper 30 is mature enough to start considering for NT Mini jailbreak support. I bought nesmaker's official mapper 30 flash solution (link), but to flash somebody elses' .nes file to it is a holy nightmare, so I'm lightly begging for an easier solution. (I'm sure I'll figure it out) But there's a lot of neat NESMaker stuff coming out, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who wants an easy way to get in on playing some of that.

 

Curious how even RetroUSB's powerpak doesn't support mapper 30, since the internet seems to think RetroUSB is where it came from.

There is nothing regarding the powerpak technology that specifically excludes this mapper. Brian released the PowerPak in 2009 which at the time was a revolutionary product. Of course the Everdrive kind of obsoletes it with automatic save creation, though the Powerpak had superior support for expansion audio and plays NSFs without the need for a dedicated player.

 

Both devices support max 512 prg and max 512 chr, and both support chr ram, so there's no reason why a mapper cannot be written for either device. Brian started producing repros using new boards based on common mappers, and was the first company to do so using newly manufactured shells and pcbs. Later he developed special unrom512 pcbs for homebrews. It is similar enough to existing discrete logic mappers that some existing homebrew and commercial games can be translated to it easily.

 

He also provided support for flash saving, since the pcb uses cheaper flash chips instead of recycled or nos eproms. Flash saving likely will not work on a Powerpak or Everdrive since the mapper needs access to the flash memory after the game has been flashed, and the rom would need to be saved back to the sd card in order to save changes.

 

A special fork of fceux was created fir the purpose of developing games on RetroUSB pcbs as well as newer flash pcbs like Memblers gtrom. But the vast majority of emulators do not support homebrew flash mappers, yet. The way the emu works is it creates a duplicate copy of the prg file and saves the entire rom as a .sav extension, to preserve the iriginal rom integrity. I don't think Brian is going to add support for homebrew flash mappers (to thwart homebrew piracy) on the Powerpak.

 

Perhaps Krikzz may add Everdrive support for RetroUSB unrom512 and Memblers GT_ROM (I've not upgraded my firmware in a while). Not sure if flash saving will work properly without a new hardware revision on the everdrive n8. For games that just keep high score tables it's not an issue, but those that need flash writes for game progression, might run into issues.

 

I havd a copynes usb on my nes which can dump the homebrew flash mappers (and supports peek/poke of bus addresses to capture individual banks), but I'm not going to share any personal dumps out of respect of the rights owners. I did get the Riko musical carts which randomly don't work on some nes/fami/avs machines due incompetence of Columbus Circle and only testing on janky cloned hardware or Retrofreak. They were mmc3 / 512kbyte prg / 256kbyte chr + 8kbyte non battery backed sram, same config as Kirby's Adventure (minus the battery) using crappy Chinese repro pcbs.