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FPGA Based Videogame System


kevtris

Interest in an FPGA Videogame System  

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  1. 1. I would pay....

  2. 2. I Would Like Support for...

  3. 3. Games Should Run From...

    • SD Card / USB Memory Sticks
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I dont wish anything bad to happen to Kevtris. This thread is about his own personal project that later became a series of Analogue products.

But when I think about the imperfect state these products are left in, I wish opensource projects do what closed source does not.

I am sure Kevtris would prefer to dedicate some of his time to polish the MSG and SNT cores, but I can imagine its not his decision but Analogues decision. Kevtris is a guy I admire. Analoge is a company I hate.

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36 minutes ago, vanfanel said:

I dont wish anything bad to happen to Kevtris. This thread is about his own personal project that later became a series of Analogue products.

But when I think about the imperfect state these products are left in, I wish opensource projects do what closed source does not.

I am sure Kevtris would prefer to dedicate some of his time to polish the MSG and SNT cores, but I can imagine its not his decision but Analogues decision. Kevtris is a guy I admire. Analoge is a company I hate.

Here's the thing though, its because of Analogue's help why Kevtris has been able to release three different FPGA systems in the matter of three years.  It would have been incredibly difficult for Kevtris to release these consoles by himself, let alone try and hit the $189.99 price point.  Analogue isn't perfect by any means, but they give Kevtris the resources to make these products possible in such a short time and at sub $200 price points.  

 

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3 hours ago, vanfanel said:

But when I think about the imperfect state these products are left in, I wish opensource projects do what closed source does not.

I am sure Kevtris would prefer to dedicate some of his time to polish the MSG and SNT cores, but I can imagine its not his decision but Analogues decision. Kevtris is a guy I admire. Analoge is a company I hate.

 

I'd like to point out that before Kev came along, those open-source FPGA endeavours were obscure works-in-progress not really ready for mainstream. Then Kev (with Analogue) showed the world how it's frickin' done, (with the NT Mini AND the Super Nt AND the Mega Sg) and he gave the open-source guys some hard-ass competition. At that point, the bar was raised.

 

And now that the open-source FPGA folks have gotten their shit together, you come and piss on Kev? Screw you.  :roll:

 

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2 hours ago, SegaSnatcher said:

Here's the thing though, its because of Analogue's help why Kevtris has been able to release three different FPGA systems in the matter of three years.  It would have been incredibly difficult for Kevtris to release these consoles by himself, let alone try and hit the $189.99 price point.  Analogue isn't perfect by any means, but they give Kevtris the resources to make these products possible in such a short time and at sub $200 price points.  

 

 

Kevtris had the cores either finished or nearly finished long before Analogue came around.  Some people collect stamps; others juggle goslings.  Kevtris makes cores, sometimes from very obscure game systems.  As I recall, he can even do the electronics prototyping. 

 

I'll grant the price point would be hard.

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38 minutes ago, PlaysWithWolves said:

 

Kevtris had the cores either finished or nearly finished long before Analogue came around.  Some people collect stamps; others juggle goslings.  Kevtris makes cores, sometimes from very obscure game systems.  As I recall, he can even do the electronics prototyping. 

 

I'll grant the price point would be hard.

Its one thing to write cores and another to take those cores and put them in a quality plastic injected shell and sell them to the general public.  With Analogue all Kevtris has to worry about is writing cores and designing the PCB, where as the shell design, manufacturing and advertising is all done by Analogue. That takes a lot of weight off Kevtris's shoulders. Its really the ultimate collaboration. 

Lastly, Kevtris didn't have a SNES or Genesis cores prior to working with Analogue.

Edited by SegaSnatcher
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Are the Analogue consoles perfect? No, the company has made the choice that the imperfections are worth leaving in place in order to get engineering time for the next product to sell. Bubble Bobble was sacrificed for the next console. Kevtris is great at what he does but he has deadlines and only so much time to devote to one product. I’m impressed there’s not more bugs considering the short amount of dev time allotted to consoles he has no previous history with. 

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I give credit to the Kevtris + Analogue partnership for proving a high quality FPGA console is commercially viable at a decent price point.

 

It's a bit inaccurate to say the open source people "woke up", though, as the people behind MiSTer have been very active since the beginning. What has changed is that there are much more people involved with it now. And yes, probably a few of then found out about MiSTer while wondering if open source corrs exist for another machine. So in a way it is also thanks to Kevtris' work (and comparison with it) that gave extra motivation to some new developers. 

 

Both approaches can perfectly coexist. Analogue keeps their niche of running original carts and hardware for specific systems, and you have MiSTer as a more general platform with more systems supported, but limited to ROMs/disk images.

Edited by Newsdee
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27 minutes ago, retrair said:

Are the Analogue consoles perfect? No, the company has made the choice that the imperfections are worth leaving in place in order to get engineering time for the next product to sell. Bubble Bobble was sacrificed for the next console. Kevtris is great at what he does but he has deadlines and only so much time to devote to one product. I’m impressed there’s not more bugs considering the short amount of dev time allotted to consoles he has no previous history with. 

And we have to remember all these bugs can always be fixed down the road.  

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Analogue still has a solid hold on the FPGA console market, and an army of youtube influencers to keep sales of new products going, but it’s not as tight as it was only last year. 

 

All the more reason for Analogue to produce more consoles as quickly as possible before MiSTer poaches customers or future fpga alternatives do. 

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On 7/24/2019 at 6:42 AM, vanfanel said:

This is sadly true. I have both the Analogue consoles (SNT and MegaSG) and the MiSTer, and the opensource implementations of the MegaDrive/Master System and SNES are WAY better by now, in every aspect. Even basic Master System games fail to function properly on the MSG (I have to use the MiSTer to play Bubble Bobble!!), and there is zero feedback from Analogue regarding this.

In the opensource world, these issues reported would have been fixed in a matter of days or hours, and without a business behind it.

Seeing how there's literally thousands of games that run on the msg, it's kind of hard to test all of them.  A lot of testing was done, but it's inevitable that some slip through the cracks.   This is the first I heard that Bubble Bobble doesn't work. 

9 hours ago, vanfanel said:

I dont wish anything bad to happen to Kevtris. This thread is about his own personal project that later became a series of Analogue products.

But when I think about the imperfect state these products are left in, I wish opensource projects do what closed source does not.

I am sure Kevtris would prefer to dedicate some of his time to polish the MSG and SNT cores, but I can imagine its not his decision but Analogues decision. Kevtris is a guy I admire. Analoge is a company I hate.

I have been working on a super NT update for awhile actually.

 

5 hours ago, PlaysWithWolves said:

 

Kevtris had the cores either finished or nearly finished long before Analogue came around.  Some people collect stamps; others juggle goslings.  Kevtris makes cores, sometimes from very obscure game systems.  As I recall, he can even do the electronics prototyping. 

 

I'll grant the price point would be hard.

The super nt and mega sg cores are brand new, and were developed specifically for those products.  It was only the nt mini cores that were already done, though they all required a lot of extra work to polish and debug them for the nt mini.

 

3 hours ago, retrair said:

Are the Analogue consoles perfect? No, the company has made the choice that the imperfections are worth leaving in place in order to get engineering time for the next product to sell. Bubble Bobble was sacrificed for the next console. Kevtris is great at what he does but he has deadlines and only so much time to devote to one product. I’m impressed there’s not more bugs considering the short amount of dev time allotted to consoles he has no previous history with. 

It wasn't sacrificed... this is literally the first I heard it doesn't work.  I put it on the bug list so I will look at it when I get a chance.  As previously mentioned, with thousands and thousands of games to test, these things can happen.

 

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Mister has higher input lag than the Super NT and Mega Sg.  That makes the Mister worse in my opinion.  Also, Kevtris continues to update the cores for all of the Analogue consoles.  He is going to release a new Super NT core soon.

 

In other words, every anti-Analogue and pro-Mister claim is not true.

Edited by Jagasian
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While there isn't anything wrong with open source, the people that that come in and insist in every discussion that everything needs to be open source, gets really old.  Yes, sometimes bugs can be worked on years later.  Just as often though, open source projects die off.  I work in software and this happens all the time with third-party libraries that are incorporated into larger projects.

 

Honestly, if you hate the very nature of closed source products, just don't buy them.  I mean this is all for a non-essential hobby of playing video games, it's not like you have to buy this stuff just because it's there.  You can always stick with the Mister only.  You can always just try each analogue product and re-sell them if you don't like them... or leave them sitting on a shelf.   At the price point this stuff comes out at, it's hardly breaking the bank to just grab it all and evaluate it after the fact, especially compared to many other hobbies.

 

23 hours ago, vanfanel said:

Analoge is a company I hate. 

 

Spelling aside, all this translates to is entitled, out of touch whining:

 

Groovy man... down with the corporations.

 

People have a right to make money.  People have bills to pay.

 

 

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2 hours ago, ErebusMaligan said:

While there isn't anything wrong with open source, the people that that come in and insist in every discussion that everything needs to be open source, gets really old.  Yes, sometimes bugs can be worked on years later.  Just as often though, open source projects die off.  I work in software and this happens all the time with third-party libraries that are incorporated into larger projects.

 

Honestly, if you hate the very nature of closed source products, just don't buy them.  I mean this is all for a non-essential hobby of playing video games, it's not like you have to buy this stuff just because it's there.  You can always stick with the Mister only.  You can always just try each analogue product and re-sell them if you don't like them... or leave them sitting on a shelf.   At the price point this stuff comes out at, it's hardly breaking the bank to just grab it all and evaluate it after the fact, especially compared to many other hobbies.

 

 

Spelling aside, all this translates to is entitled, out of touch whining:

 

Groovy man... down with the corporations.

 

People have a right to make money.  People have bills to pay.

 

 

Exactly, open source doesn't automatically mean superior.   Also, its not like all those MiSTer cores are flawless either, some still need a good bit of work.  I just think MiSTer people need to realize that Analogue products cater to a specific group of people who appreciate a plug n play device that actually looks like a consumer product. 

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LOL! Chris Taber (Analogue) doesn't write the firmware. He produces, sells, and markets it. Funny that people would attack him for doing his job (tweeting pixel porn) and lay blame for firmware concerns directly at his feet just because you expect us to share your "Company=BAD!" mentality for less resistance to the mischaracterization.

 

 

 

Along with Kevin's remarkable talents, the Mega Sg EXISTS because of Chris' passion and love for the Genesis. Let's not forget that.

 

This whole thing is silly. If anyone thought Kevtris' had abandoned FW from previous consoles, well, they're demonstrably wrong and attacking Chris for marketing is way off base. The entitlement is off the charts.

 

 

 

 

 

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FYI: GameTechUS just announced Hi-Def NES is back in stock.

 

Since we're also on the subject of Kevtris and FW updates: Ninja Gaiden still has a graphical glitch near the end of the game (same one from my old YouTube video). I do have an Everdrive N8 and can save just before that part if Kev wants to take a look at it. Not sure what other games it affects but I'm sure it'll fix something else. atariage_icon_smile.gif

 

 

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@kevtris , I am impressed that the Bubble Bobble and Rastan problems havent got to you ears before. Please take a look at:

 

https://github.com/SmokeMonsterPacks/Mega-Sg-Jailbreak/issues

 

People from all around the world are testing these hundreds and hundreds of games for you, saving you time with the final touches that the Genesis and Master System implementations need. As you will see, these reports are actually very well documented and should be useful, and they will save you testing time.

And, as you may know, except for the few "special" carts (exotic SRAM, Sega VDP, etc), JB compatibility is the same as using original carts, so even if the cores are closed source, people is still reporting the issues they have. Take advantage of the community work :) 

Also, JB compatibility testing is great because it takes aging cart connectors out of the equation and saves you from false issue reports. 

 

 

Edited by vanfanel
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31 minutes ago, vanfanel said:

@kevtris , I am impressed that the Bubble Bobble and Rastan problems havent got to you ears before. Please take a look at:

 

https://github.com/SmokeMonsterPacks/Mega-Sg-Jailbreak/issues

 

People from all around the world are testing these hundreds and hundreds of games for you, saving you time with the final touches that the Genesis and Master System implementations need. As you will see, these reports are actually very well documented and should be useful, and they will save you testing time.

And, as you may know, except for the few "special" carts (exotic SRAM, Sega VDP, etc), JB compatibility is the same as using original carts, so even if the cores are closed source, people is still reporting the issues they have. Take advantage of the community work :) 

Also, JB compatibility testing is great because it takes aging cart connectors out of the equation and saves you from false issue reports. 

 

 

He's already aware of the github, just probably been too busy with Super NT firmware to check lately.    That github is also used for official firmware issues.

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35 minutes ago, retrair said:

The consoles are marketed as perfection and priced to enthusiasts expecting nothing less. Mind the criticism.  

 

I think they are definitely marketed a bit overly hyperbolic for sure, especially at release since there are always going to be bugs up front due to the size of the libraries.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with pointing out hey, bugs X, Y, Z still exist, and really should be fixed.

 

But there is a bit of a leap from that to: OMG these things are worthless, and business is the devil.

 

One is legitimate criticism, and one is just immature ranting.

 

Edit: And as for pricing, I'd say the nt mini was enthusiast priced, the super nt and mega sg seem targeted at a much larger audience with their pricing.

Edited by ErebusMaligan
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This is all forum rant of course, as entertaining as it may be to read and engage. A legitimate inquiry would be to email Analogue about the Bubble Bobble issue and see where it stands in the queue to get done. If you don’t like the response, ask for a refund or partial refund. 

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21 minutes ago, retrair said:

This is all forum rant of course, as entertaining as it may be to read and engage. A legitimate inquiry would be to email Analogue about the Bubble Bobble issue and see where it stands in the queue to get done. If you don’t like the response, ask for a refund or partial refund. 

You talking about this re: Bubble Bobble pausing on its own? https://github.com/SmokeMonsterPacks/Mega-Sg-Jailbreak/issues/41

 

That Github is for jailbreak issues.. so we then go back to the question of does Analogue even support the jailbreak functionality of loading a Bubble Bobble rom? I think not.

 

Someone would have to verify if the same issue occurs on an actual Bubble Bobble SMS cart (and judging from one sentence in that github, it doesn't appear so), then there'd be the basis of a complaint to the company about the product. I agree it should be looked at eventually, but marketing/support-wise, it's beyond their purview.  Just saying. :p

 

Edited by Major_Havoc
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26 minutes ago, retrair said:

If the issue is on an actual cart it should be emailed/Twittered to Analogue. Maybe they look at that list or maybe they don’t, so you can’t count on it for getting something fixed.

As of today I can't find any info that it occurs with the cart.. i.e. something for them to fix. What IS findable out there on that Github issue site for now says the opposite:

         

             "I had the same issue with the EU and JP ROMS from the smokemonster set, but not with the EU cart"

 

But yeah if you, or anyone does confirm the issue with the cart, log it down and send it in and help everyone out. :)

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The consoles are marketed as perfection and priced to enthusiasts expecting nothing less. Mind the criticism. 

LOL! "Perfection." It's already MORE perfect than a real Genesis in some respects Take the audio option that adjusts the busy behavior of the sound chip being toggleable to work correctly with software made for one or the other, which neither original system could do. Some games work right on one system but the other and vice-versa.

There are many aspects which might be considered "perfect." We can ask for and hope that it gets closer to indisputable perfection but demanding it to be even more perfect than the originals is probably a bit unreasonable, to say the least.

As of today I can't find any info that it occurs with the cart.. i.e. something for them to fix. What IS findable out there on that Github issue site for now says the opposite:
         
             "I had the same issue with the EU and JP ROMS from the smokemonster set, but not with the EU cart"
 
But yeah if you, or anyone does confirm the issue with the cart, log it down and send it in and help everyone out. [emoji4]

Yes. This was mentioned earlier in the thread too and I couldn't fathom how anyone thought this complaint was still valid without SOME report of this happening on an actual Bubble Bobble cart.

Just what do people think it means when we say Analogue doesn't officially support the jailbreak? If it gets addressed... great! Count your blessings. DEMANDING it sounds incredibly entitled.
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