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FPGA Based Videogame System


kevtris

Interest in an FPGA Videogame System  

682 members have voted

  1. 1. I would pay....

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

  3. 3. Games Should Run From...

    • SD Card / USB Memory Sticks
    • Original Cartridges
    • Hopes and Dreams
  4. 4. The Video Inteface Should be...


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6 hours ago, hyrulebr said:

Also Ultracore comes pre installed? Another missing information on the web-site...

 

Mine will arrive today but I´m in Brazil and choose to delivery it at US (I will use a forwarder service to send to Brazil). I will only see it in person next year... ?

Yes, Ultracore is pre-installed. :)

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Regarding the Hyperdub MegaSG, I'm curious about the technical side of the music cart that comes with it. Is it generating the audio on the cart and using the pass through audio feature of the Genesis? Because of the quality of the music, and the voice samples, I suspect it is, but I didn't try disabling the pass through feature on the SG.

 

I also found it interesting that there's an SD card in the cart, but I guess it makes sense as a cheap storage means that could be updated after manufacturing the cart.

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1 hour ago, Cosmic Owl said:

Regarding the Hyperdub MegaSG, I'm curious about the technical side of the music cart that comes with it. Is it generating the audio on the cart and using the pass through audio feature of the Genesis? Because of the quality of the music, and the voice samples, I suspect it is, but I didn't try disabling the pass through feature on the SG.

 

I also found it interesting that there's an SD card in the cart, but I guess it makes sense as a cheap storage means that could be updated after manufacturing the cart.

Probably pass through. This japanese guy dumped the music. All wav files. (see replies below).

 

 

 

 

Edited by hyrulebr
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5 hours ago, Namdor said:

Someone had a mega link up on Twitter but it was taken down today before I could download it :(. I bought the system but having the files would be nice too.

It looks like there is a Micro SD card inside the shell which is weird. The music could be on there I suppose.

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5 hours ago, Kosmic Stardust said:

So, I am confused. Is this an actual chiptune cart, or just an embedded music player? Also is there any way to get this cart without buying a second Mega SG?

 

Or if someone bought a translucent Mega SG and is interested in selling their cart, that works too.

The best that I can tell, it is an embedded music player.

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I still think MegaSG composite blending is REALLY poor compared to what we also have on the open source MegaDrive & MegaCD cores.

As I said, I have both the MiSTer and the MegaSG, and I have got to a point where MegaSG looks very ugly to me compared to the MiSTer cores because of the poor composite blending effect option that the MegaSG has.

 

This is how the incredible open-source composite blending looks on the MiSTer.

This is a totally constructive post, specially because the MegaSG can incorporate this feature very easily: I have talked with Kitrinx, the author of the PERFECT composite blending implementation, and she has no problem with Kevtris looking at her core and do a similar implementation into the MegaSG. She told me that "it will be very easy for someone as experienced as Kevtris, since the code is very simple in nature".

 

This is how Elemental Master intro text looks with the open-source composite blending. As you will see, text looks fine, its perfectly readable and everything is coherent (where the broken MegaSG composite blending is ugly as sin in the same scene):

951296621_NODATE-ElementalMaster_0002.png.6379793f920cfc908d5a7673883cebee.png

 

This is how Sonic 1 blending-based water transparency looks with the open-source composite blending. No ugly score, fonts or lives counter: just PERFECTLY looking as a composite hooked MegaDrive console!

263027800_NODATE-SonictheHedgehog_0001.png.f1465670ce99f6640cf1d1e0098a4571.png

 

This is how Streets of Rage 2 transparent bar lights look. Again, no ugly fonts or horrid bar pics, just PERFECT transparency, very clean. This is just imposible with current MegaSG blending solution:

2010769742_NODATE-StreetsofRage2_0001.png.cae863deba53dd48c405e4bdcc57777c.png

 

Again, Elemental Master shows a very nice tittle screen, with coherent blending in fonts and background image:

424588109_NODATE-ElementalMaster_0001.png.6a12decd3eb85058c6469b2ff261b740.png

 

This is how Comix Zone looks like with the open-source composite blending. This game looks horrid on the MegaSG in comparision! Again, look at the far backgrounds: great colors as in a real composite TV, and NO ugly fonts or faces, just perfection.

1295393063_NODATE-ComixZone_0003.png.87a06c85428fad54e312bcb3b163af99.png

 

More about Comix Zone. This game is perfect to show how superior the open-source blending is:

232866852_NODATE-ComixZone_0002.png.c350d7d5ed5cc95435a97f5d11a76ebb.png

 

1895350852_NODATE-ComixZone_0001.png.66e6cd432c9f321c96c123f9e173f665.png

 

The Terminator for Mega CD looks HORRIBLE on the MegaSG. This is how it looks with the open-source composite blending. As you can see, pattern-based transparency effects are just gorgeous:

20191220_151954-screen.png.b291cae6fba28feb9a5c07ef3b5affd3.png

 

20191220_151907-screen.png.8c5d85924163019899a18d9e755b638f.png

 

Let me repeat: The code for this coherent and beautiful composite blending is free for anyone to look at and reimplement (NOT directly use as-is because its GPLv3, but it can be looked at and a similar implementation can be done very easily, and its author has said that Kevtris will have no problem at all with doing so).

Its available here: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Genesis_MiSTer/blob/master/cofi.sv

For Kevtris, it would be a matter of minutes. For the rest of us, it would be PERFECT composite blending over HDMI.

So, please guys, ask Kevtris for this little detail, too!

 

Also, I know the MegaSG already has an optional blending option. But its broken as its done "selectively", which creates a lot of unwanted artifacts like broken fonts or distorted low-res portraits, incoherent areas in the image, etc.

This solution fixes all those problems and can be easily incorporated to the MegaSG (maybe it could be named "simple blending" or "non-selective blending").

 

Edited by vanfanel
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With how much stuff Kevtris seems to be working on I doubt he will work on anything that isn't replicating how the original system works.  He doesn't even have time to fix bugs or implement features for the past systems at this point and they have new products coming in a couple months.  And based on past comments around here I doubt he would even entertain the idea of looking at someone else's code.

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16 hours ago, RetrogamerX said:

 I buy these consoles for HDMI.  I like the compatibility with modern displays. So glad Analogue came along to bring out these great consoles we grew up with to play on HDMI.  Imho I could care less for composite or the Mister. 

 

 

Just my opinion

I thought I had been very clear: the blending option is already on the MegaSG menu over HDMI, but its broken. Its an option, no one is forcing to use it. I am just asking it to be fixed. Blending is a very important part of MegaDrive/Genesis graphics because a lot of games (and I mean a REAL LOT) count on blending for looking right. Without blending, many many games look wrong, because they were designed for blending.

 

Now, if you are not interested, there is no need to say that you are not interested, so I dont understand your post.

 

Also, I dont understand why would someone not be interested about blending when its an integral part of MegaDrive/Genesis games. They looked blended back in the day in the vast majority of setups, so blending is the natural way of these games to look. Even so, its an option, no one is forcing you to use it.

 

This is The Terminator without blending:

20191220_151844-screen.png.07889678d0ccb01026f253e2335723b8.png

 

This is The Terminator with blending (different sky color is due to the thunder/war effect in that scene), look at transparent smoke. It was designed to be transparent exactly like this. Non-transparent smoke? You are seeing it wrong, a Genesis back in the day showed it transparent in most setups, as you are seeing here:

20191220_151907-screen.png.8be3e052c8153a3a1002f32f1ad39eaa.png

 

I am starting to believe that most people only knew the emulated Genesis (no blending artifacts) and they never really knew the system back in the day.

Edited by vanfanel
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18 minutes ago, vanfanel said:

Now, if you are not interested, there is no need to say that you are not interested, so I dont understand your post.

He posted that because your recent posts on this subject come off a little strong, with the bold characters and whatnot. I tend to agree with him, and you also look like the kind of guy who feels the need to subdue other people who have different opinions than yours.

 

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On 12/9/2019 at 5:28 AM, spoonman said:

I tested it for about 9 hours straight. Playing about 75 games on CV, SG1000, SMS, GG, and GEN. I didn't have any one game in mind. I just played the games I knew best on the CV, they sounded perfect so I assumed all ColecoVision would also be perfect.

 

I thought it was clear that I am super impressed by both Sewer Sam and Squish 'Em. Actual digitized speech on a 1982 ColecoVision system without a voice add-on, such as the Intellivoice, is very impressive. I also thought the same of Spike on the Vectrex. "DARN IT!". As well as the smooth "Sega Super Scaler" 3D syle scrolling in Sewer Sam. Having those game working correctly on the Mega Sg would be great just for how they stick out from all other games in the ColecoVision library.

I tried Sewer Sam on the Mega Sg and it seems to play back the speech samples correctly.  Only Squish 'Em has the issue of the speech being drowned out by the high-pitched noise.

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On 12/21/2019 at 5:24 AM, vanfanel said:

I am starting to believe that most people only knew the emulated Genesis (no blending artifacts) and they never really knew the system back in the day.

Or.... it just isn't as important to others as it is to you.

 

It would be cool if it could be a more ideal result for those that want it.  I personally would never use this, but I don't object to it being worked on obviously.

 

That said, you've made your point.  You need to stop posting as if you are entitled to having it changed.

 

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I believe Vanfanel does make a valid point. The Genesis had color limitations compared to the SNES, so dithering was used to compensate quite often. Those artifacts are very apparent to me when playing the Mega SG via HDMI. I even see it with a model 1 Genesis via component on a CRT with HD retrovision cables. The SNES used dithering, but sparingly compared to the Genesis. It is something that is important to me, as the games do not look like they were intended. I think may people overlook this for whatever reason. Kevtris did address it by offering the ability to adjust the dithering setting, but it isn't perfect and mileage varies per game. I am hoping this can be fixed with the Analogue DAC on a CRT. Does it need to be updated or fixed? Does this mean the MegaSG isn't reference quality? I don't know, but it is a minor flaw and valid constructive criticism. It could be a lot of work for little return and not worth the time investment to fix. Nothing to dissuade me from Analogue and Kevtris.

 

Here is a great article about composite video and blending written by Great Hierophant:

https://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-case-for-composite.html

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I don't think most people would argue that at least in many cases the dithering was used as a means of blending or transparency on consumer equipment.  I think the point was: by all means point out that it's an issue and how it could be improved... but saying things like " You are seeing it wrong " and " I am starting to believe that most people only knew the emulated Genesis (no blending artifacts) and they never really knew the system back in the day. "  are both debatable and at the very best elitist and obnoxious.

 

Personally dithering doesn't bother me... but I don't doubt it can annoy some people.  Saying you are seeing what is actually there as "wrong" because signal fidelity and display technology have both improved is just a factually incorrect statement.  You are seeing what is actually there, regardless of what the intended final result was supposed to look like after expected distortion.

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8 hours ago, Sneakyturtleegg said:

Here is a great article about composite video and blending written by Great Hierophant:

https://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-case-for-composite.html

I guess I'd also make the point that you can argue the intention, but which you think looks better is a matter of personal preference.  I personally prefer the dithered look, as all of the blended images just look ugly and smeared to me.  My brain interprets the dithering as translucent automatically anyway... so it seems fine to me.

 

I had a genesis running on composite on a crappy little tv when i was a kid. I'm glad technology has progressed.

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On 12/21/2019 at 5:24 AM, vanfanel said:

I thought I had been very clear: the blending option is already on the MegaSG menu over HDMI, but its broken. Its an option, no one is forcing to use it. I am just asking it to be fixed. Blending is a very important part of MegaDrive/Genesis graphics because a lot of games (and I mean a REAL LOT) count on blending for looking right. Without blending, many many games look wrong, because they were designed for blending.

 

Now, if you are not interested, there is no need to say that you are not interested, so I dont understand your post.

 

Also, I dont understand why would someone not be interested about blending when its an integral part of MegaDrive/Genesis games. They looked blended back in the day in the vast majority of setups, so blending is the natural way of these games to look. Even so, its an option, no one is forcing you to use it.

 

This is The Terminator without blending:

20191220_151844-screen.png.07889678d0ccb01026f253e2335723b8.png

 

This is The Terminator with blending (different sky color is due to the thunder/war effect in that scene), look at transparent smoke. It was designed to be transparent exactly like this. Non-transparent smoke? You are seeing it wrong, a Genesis back in the day showed it transparent in most setups, as you are seeing here:

20191220_151907-screen.png.8be3e052c8153a3a1002f32f1ad39eaa.png

 

I am starting to believe that most people only knew the emulated Genesis (no blending artifacts) and they never really knew the system back in the day.

I agree 100%. This would be a huge draw for those of us who grew up playing the Sega Genesis "properly" on a composite CRT. Dithering was used very extensively on the Genesis to take advantage of composite video in faking transparencies, shadows, and increased color palettes. I would never go back to composite over RGB, but with proper blending we could get the best of both worlds. 

 

I am certainly thankful that Kevin has added dither blending to the Sg, and would be further grateful if it were improved upon. I'm just not sure he's still working on the Mega Sg with at least 2 other Analogue products on the table. We shall see. 

 

I've also recently saw the current status of the Genesis core on MiSTer and I'm really impressed by it. I kind of wish we had unlimited sprites and turbo mode on the Mega Sg. The latter makes games like Sonic Spinball much less laggy and slow moving. Maybe it would also work with Hard Drivin', and others.

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4 hours ago, spoonman said:

I am certainly thankful that Kevin has added dither blending to the Sg, and would be further grateful if it were improved upon. I'm just not sure he's still working on the Mega Sg with at least 2 other Analogue products on the table. We shall see. 

 

Thats the thing, look: Kevtris does NOT have to invest work time on the MegaSG to improve dithering, because perfect and uniform dithering (as shown by the images on my previous posts) comes from a public code that he can just adapt to the MegaSG in a matter of minutes.

It is here: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Genesis_MiSTer/blob/master/cofi.sv

It is very very simple code to look at and implement. And whats more: I have already talked to Kitrinx, the code author, and she said that Kevtris can look at her simple code and implement it very easily because he is a very experienced developer.

 

I am already enjoying this on the MiSTer Genesis core, but I really like the MegaSG and it bugs me that dithering so broken on the MegaSG when it could be on par with the MiSTer very easily. So its not really about me, but about the MegaSG "completeness" so everyone who understands how Genesis graphic arts where often designed to take advantage of composite artifacting could benefit.

Edited by vanfanel
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14 hours ago, vanfanel said:

It is very very simple code to look at and implement. And whats more: I have already talked to Kitrinx, the code author, and she said that Kevtris can look at her simple code and implement it very easily because he is a very experienced developer.

On paper it sounds like a spectacular idea, as I'm sure literally everyone involved wants better dither blending and knows that it is possible. That said, if I had to deal with what Kevtris deals with then I'd probably do exactly what he's doing--keeping any code remotely related to MiSTer at arm's length from whatever I was working on. Yes, it's profoundly frustrating how the politics of projects like these work but I doubt Kev or Analogue want to get bogged down in the kinds of backlash that Hyperkin gets.

For the record, those screenshots look boss and I'm super jealous. I wish I could toggle blending like that on and off for certain games.

Edited by Drunk_Caterpillar
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19 hours ago, vanfanel said:

Thats the thing, look: Kevtris does NOT have to invest work time on the MegaSG to improve dithering, because perfect and uniform dithering (as shown by the images on my previous posts) comes from a public code that he can just adapt to the MegaSG in a matter of minutes.

It is here: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Genesis_MiSTer/blob/master/cofi.sv

It is very very simple code to look at and implement. And whats more: I have already talked to Kitrinx, the code author, and she said that Kevtris can look at her simple code and implement it very easily because he is a very experienced developer.

 

I am already enjoying this on the MiSTer Genesis core, but I really like the MegaSG and it bugs me that dithering so broken on the MegaSG when it could be on par with the MiSTer very easily. So its not really about me, but about the MegaSG "completeness" so everyone who understands how Genesis graphic arts where often designed to take advantage of composite artifacting could benefit.

It's pretty obvious that you don't understand how Kevtris works at all.  He's not gonna look at MiSTer's code because he doesn't want to associate himself with the project or have anyone say that he is.  He takes pride in knowing that everything he's developed and worked on had very little input from other projects aside from general schematics and write ups.  There has already been a kerfuffle with someone on the MiSTer side of things (Jotego) claiming multiple times that he stole code from him for use in the Mega SG.  One example of this:

 

 

This was easily proven wrong when Kevtris identified & fixed the issue (YM2612 bug) far before Jotego did, early on in the Mega SG support no less.  This is also exactly why you're not going to see him all of a sudden look at MiSTer (or any other) code for a "quick fix."  There has however been many times where he has taken suggestions & advice from various people in this scene -- both here, as well as IRC & Discord, and implemented it into his development for a richer experience.

 

What you should be doing is instead is asking him if he can perform a similar fix or update to the Mega SG for composite blending, instead telling him what he should do and where he should go like an entitled child.  Don't get me wrong, the MiSTer core is also excellent and a fine choice.  But Kevtris and his work should be respected as well.  

Edited by Sho
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45 minutes ago, Sho said:

It's pretty obvious that you don't understand how Kevtris works at all.  He's not gonna look at MiSTer's code because he doesn't want to associate himself with the project or have anyone say that he is.  He takes pride in knowing that everything he's developed and worked on had very little input from other projects aside from general schematics and write ups.  There has already been a kerfuffle with someone on the MiSTer side of things (Jotego) claiming multiple times that he stole code from him for use in the Mega SG.  One example of this:

 

 

This was easily proven wrong when Kevtris identified & fixed the issue (YM2612 bug) far before Jotego did, early on in the Mega SG support no less.  This is also exactly why you're not going to see him all of a sudden look at MiSTer (or any other) code for a "quick fix."  There has however been many times where he has taken suggestions & advice from various people in this scene -- both here, as well as IRC & Discord, and implemented it into his development for a richer experience.

 

What you should be doing is instead is asking him if he can perform a similar fix or update to the Mega SG for composite blending, instead telling him what he should do and where he should go like an entitled child.  Don't get me wrong, the MiSTer core is also excellent and a fine choice.  But Kevtris and his work should be respected as well.  

Of course I respect Kevtris and his work. In fact, even if I already enjoy the corrected blending on the MiSTer, I want to see it on the MegaSG because I like and enjoy the MegaSG that much.

About GPL: one can not directly use GPL code (that would imply releasing the code of the MegaSG core), but you can take a look at the code and implement a similar solution: thats why GPL != open source. This core is particularly simple, too. And in this case, the original author (Katrinx) has already been contacted and she is ok with people taking a look at her code and implement a similar solution.

 

Edited by vanfanel
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1 hour ago, vanfanel said:

About GPL: one can not directly use GPL code (that would imply releasing the code of the MegaSG core), but you can take a look at the code and implement a similar solution: thats why GPL != open source. This core is particularly simple, too. And in this case, the original author (Katrinx) has already been contacted and she is ok with people taking a look at her code and implement a similar solution.

 


I’ve already pointed out this is wrong. The only legally safe reimplementation is a clean room implementation. Not doing so risks it being marked as a derivative work.
 

And no, this isn’t why GPL isn’t open source. It generally isn’t considered an OSS license because it requires derivative works also be GPL and it’s restrictive in that including GPL code in a project requires that the whole project become GPL (hence the need for LGPL which isn’t quite so invasive). And this is all by design. MIT or BSD licenses are easier to work with, and may be what you are thinking of.


And unless the author is willing to relicense the blending code to Analogue under a different license, it doesn’t matter what they say on the internet. The license on the code still applies. 

 

And that may be tough if the code was contributed directly to a project like MISTer, since the maintainers of that project may also have say in where the code can be used. Code ownership in projects with multiple contributors gets messy.

 

It is not as clear cut like you claim.

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23 hours ago, Kaide said:


I’ve already pointed out this is wrong. The only legally safe reimplementation is a clean room implementation. Not doing so risks it being marked as a derivative work.
 

And no, this isn’t why GPL isn’t open source. It generally isn’t considered an OSS license because it requires derivative works also be GPL and it’s restrictive in that including GPL code in a project requires that the whole project become GPL (hence the need for LGPL which isn’t quite so invasive). And this is all by design. MIT or BSD licenses are easier to work with, and may be what you are thinking of.


And unless the author is willing to relicense the blending code to Analogue under a different license, it doesn’t matter what they say on the internet. The license on the code still applies. 

 

And that may be tough if the code was contributed directly to a project like MISTer, since the maintainers of that project may also have say in where the code can be used. Code ownership in projects with multiple contributors gets messy.

 

It is not as clear cut like you claim.

Now this is a great answer, and one that has taught me some things. Thanks a lot for this, really.

I had not noticed the "derivative works" implications, so you are, of course, totally right.

 

My guess, however, is that currently available blending option in the MegaSG (yes! We already have blending! But its selective and that selectivity is, I believe, the source or all "ugliness" in fonts and characters) could be, in fact, tuned to behave like a simple, un-selective blending routine by letting the "blending depth" slider movement to go even higher or lower, I dont know.

What do you think about that possibility?

 

In other words, I believe that the problem with currently available blending option was, at some point in Kevtris development, a simple, yet uniform and perfect, blending option. So no need to look at GPL code at all.

Edited by vanfanel
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