FPGA Based Videogame System

[RetrogamerX]

On 12/24/2019 at 9:37 AM, 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.  

 

 

That jotego is a complete dumb ****.   

[seastalker]

You have the right to express your opinion, but I doubt it will be a favorable one by the majority.  jotego seems to be a well respected individual and I am very happy with his FPGA cores.  His work is fantastic as is Kevtris's. I'm baffled: Why say such a thing? A difference in ideas over a GPL 3 license? That he may not have had 100% surety that Analogue took code? I don't know your talents, but I have yet to release a FPGA core for any playform, so at least in that area, I MUST be dumber than jotego.

Edited December 28, 2019 by seastalker

[CZroe]

 
 
That jotego is a complete dumb ****.   

He just doesn't know Kevtris and made an incorrect assumption... just like you don't know Jotego and m- Well, you get the picture.

[zetastrike]

I've spent most of the past year on the Classic Gaming discord and I gotta say the whole MiSTer community there is a snake pit.  When they're not all fighting among themselves or having a one-sided argument with sorg, they're lashing out at Kevtris/analogue.  Their petty, catty attitude towards anything that isn't open source (ie, free and easy for them to stick their fingers in, because they're entitled to that) is insane.  And they're really on no moral high ground given their project's total dependence an a powerful dev board being dumped on the market at below cost by a Big Evil Corporation that loves money.  They crab about Analogue's systems being closed (because they're a Big Evil Corporation and commerce is the devil), then crab again about Analogue's newest system being open.  You'd think they'd be happy that there could be another piece of hardware out there that can run their software especially since the DE-10 gravy train could very well go away in the future and there's no guarantee another cheap yet very powerful dev board will be available to replace it.  I like my MiSTer and my Analogue systems, but the stuff I read from them makes me always use the Analogue stuff instead where applicable.  That server isn't pretty.

[Newsdee]

8 hours ago, zetastrike said:

There's no guarantee another cheap yet very powerful dev board will be available to replace it. 

MiSTer has already been ported to three other boards: http://modernhackers.com/mister/

[RetrogamerX]

13 hours ago, zetastrike said:

I've spent most of the past year on the Classic Gaming discord and I gotta say the whole MiSTer community there is a snake pit.  When they're not all fighting among themselves or having a one-sided argument with sorg, they're lashing out at Kevtris/analogue.  Their petty, catty attitude towards anything that isn't open source (ie, free and easy for them to stick their fingers in, because they're entitled to that) is insane.  And they're really on no moral high ground given their project's total dependence an a powerful dev board being dumped on the market at below cost by a Big Evil Corporation that loves money.  They crab about Analogue's systems being closed (because they're a Big Evil Corporation and commerce is the devil), then crab again about Analogue's newest system being open.  You'd think they'd be happy that there could be another piece of hardware out there that can run their software especially since the DE-10 gravy train could very well go away in the future and there's no guarantee another cheap yet very powerful dev board will be available to replace it.  I like my MiSTer and my Analogue systems, but the stuff I read from them makes me always use the Analogue stuff instead where applicable.  That server isn't pretty.

 

I have no interest in MiSTer whats so ever.  I played my friends MiSTer for a week and thought it was ok. Nothing mind blowing.  I don't understand all the hype tbh.  I would rather play my Analogue or AVS Consoles

Edited December 30, 2019 by RetrogamerX

[SegaSnatcher]

I'm a big supporter of both Analogue and the MiSTer platform and I have to agree there has been way too much hostility towards Kevtris from the MiSTer crowd. They seem to forget all his past contributions like the .NSF format and the countless documentations he has provided on different hardware. There is no debate that Analogue and Kevtris made FPGA more mainstream and is one of the reasons MiSTer has been getting more attention. No, Kevtris doesn't share his FPGA code, but why should he be obligated to, he's still contributed more in this scene than half the people giving him crap. 

I feel there is a huge double standard on that server.  There has literally been a member who said "F*** Kevtris" two times in that server and has never received a warning, but if you challenge anything Sorg does they will get on your behind like you just kicked their cat. I appreciate what open source gives to the community, but that doesn't mean anything closed source = evil.  

This is why I'm really excited for the Pocket, because now Analogue is delivering a cool piece of hardware that will allow for open source development.  Turning the Pocket into a Portable MiSter light is definitely intriguing to me.  I'm hoping Pocket will bring the communities together. 

[kevtris]

15 hours ago, zetastrike said:

I've spent most of the past year on the Classic Gaming discord and I gotta say the whole MiSTer community there is a snake pit.  When they're not all fighting among themselves or having a one-sided argument with sorg, they're lashing out at Kevtris/analogue. 

I don't understand it either.  I've been called all sorts of nasty things by the Mister community.   They seem to have a vendetta against me and use every opportunity to bash me and/or Analogue.  At first, the Mister devs on there were real nice to me, but when I told them I couldn't release my code in an open source manner, their attitude towards me changed pretty fast.  One of their devs accused me twice of using/stealing his code, and another of the devs there keeps pushing this lie on there as if it were the truth.  Of course I have not looked at a single line of Mister source, except when someone posted it in this thread.

 

As for that blending, I already have something similar, and the idea was to only make it blend when it needed to, instead of all the time.  This way the whole screen doesn't look like someone slathered Vaseline on it.  I can make it blend all the time instead of selectively maybe by setting a slider to min or max and might add that when I do some other changes/fixes.

 

It was pretty amusing; the Mister people on the discord server were making fun of me for the Super nt core being TOO accurate!  I support video modes that the original hardware can do, but aren't terribly useful, simply because it's there and something might use it in the future and got harassed for it.   They carried on for an hour or so with their barrage of hate towards me, and scattered like cockroaches when I started talking.   When the Pocket got announced a few months ago, they'd go on a 2-3 hour hatefest every day.  It was frankly amusing how petty and ironic a lot of their so-called arguments were.

 

They sure are not endearing anyone to the Mister cause with all their hate and abuse towards me.  I just am curious to know what I did to them to make them detest me so.  Awhile back I tried to give them some NES information and was accused of "talking down" to them, so I have stopped trying to help at all.  It seems that if you're not giving away stuff you worked on for years for free, you're not welcome and become a target of ridicule.  When I pointed out that I give out stuff more valuable than code, such as my hardware documentation, they scoff at it.   I am giving away the golden goose (docs) and all they want are a few eggs (source code).  Knowing how the actual hardware works at a register and cycle level lets you reproduce it in any form, be it PC emulator or FPGA core, write games and make compatible hardware.  Trying to extract this kind of information from an emulator can be pretty difficult due to how emulators are written.  They tend to use runahead, catchup, or other hacks to get decent performance which muddies the waters when it comes to figuring out the timing.

 

Due to the single SDRAM nature of the Mister development environment, it makes cycle accuracy impossible or very difficult on many of their later cores, like SA-1 and Superfx for the SNES, the GBA core, and possibly others.  When I have said in the past that something couldn't easily be done, I meant in a cycle accurate way.  Sure, you can make it work if you don't care so much about cycle accuracy, but that is an affront to my whole FPGA mantra of accuracy.  "yeah but it runs the games!"  Sure. But at that point, you might as well be running a Raspberry pi and an emulator if all you care about is running games. 

 

This is pretty much all I will say about the Mister project;  they sure have not made me want to help or support them in any way and I have seen them actively drive away several other people with their attitude.

[dj_convoy]

2 hours ago, kevtris said:

  I just am curious to know what I did to them to make them detest me so. 

You dared to get paid for your years of hard work, you monster!

[Drunk_Caterpillar]

[Deleted]

Edited December 31, 2019 by Drunk_Caterpillar

[Drunk_Caterpillar]

4 hours ago, kevtris said:

I don't understand it either.  I've been called all sorts of nasty things by the Mister community.   They seem to have a vendetta against me and use every opportunity to bash me and/or Analogue.  At first, the Mister devs on there were real nice to me, but when I told them I couldn't release my code in an open source manner, their attitude towards me changed pretty fast.  One of their devs accused me twice of using/stealing his code, and another of the devs there keeps pushing this lie on there as if it were the truth.  Of course I have not looked at a single line of Mister source, except when someone posted it in this thread.

 

As for that blending, I already have something similar, and the idea was to only make it blend when it needed to, instead of all the time.  This way the whole screen doesn't look like someone slathered Vaseline on it.  I can make it blend all the time instead of selectively maybe by setting a slider to min or max and might add that when I do some other changes/fixes.

 

It was pretty amusing; the Mister people on the discord server were making fun of me for the Super nt core being TOO accurate!  I support video modes that the original hardware can do, but aren't terribly useful, simply because it's there and something might use it in the future and got harassed for it.   They carried on for an hour or so with their barrage of hate towards me, and scattered like cockroaches when I started talking.   When the Pocket got announced a few months ago, they'd go on a 2-3 hour hatefest every day.  It was frankly amusing how petty and ironic a lot of their so-called arguments were.

 

They sure are not endearing anyone to the Mister cause with all their hate and abuse towards me.  I just am curious to know what I did to them to make them detest me so.  Awhile back I tried to give them some NES information and was accused of "talking down" to them, so I have stopped trying to help at all.  It seems that if you're not giving away stuff you worked on for years for free, you're not welcome and become a target of ridicule.  When I pointed out that I give out stuff more valuable than code, such as my hardware documentation, they scoff at it.   I am giving away the golden goose (docs) and all they want are a few eggs (source code).  Knowing how the actual hardware works at a register and cycle level lets you reproduce it in any form, be it PC emulator or FPGA core, write games and make compatible hardware.  Trying to extract this kind of information from an emulator can be pretty difficult due to how emulators are written.  They tend to use runahead, catchup, or other hacks to get decent performance which muddies the waters when it comes to figuring out the timing.

 

Due to the single SDRAM nature of the Mister development environment, it makes cycle accuracy impossible or very difficult on many of their later cores, like SA-1 and Superfx for the SNES, the GBA core, and possibly others.  When I have said in the past that something couldn't easily be done, I meant in a cycle accurate way.  Sure, you can make it work if you don't care so much about cycle accuracy, but that is an affront to my whole FPGA mantra of accuracy.  "yeah but it runs the games!"  Sure. But at that point, you might as well be running a Raspberry pi and an emulator if all you care about is running games. 

 

This is pretty much all I will say about the Mister project;  they sure have not made me want to help or support them in any way and I have seen them actively drive away several other people with their attitude.

Thanks for chiming in Kevin; I’m sorry you have to suffer through that kind of needless hostility. If it’s any consolation, my friends and I have been having a really good time with the Super Nt and Mega Sg over the holidays and I’m super grateful that you put in the work you did. Thanks man. 

[jamon1567]

2 hours ago, dj_convoy said:

You dared to get paid for your years of hard work, you monster!

That and jealousy I'd presume. 

14 minutes ago, Drunk_Caterpillar said:

Thanks for chiming in Kevin; I’m sorry you have to suffer through that kind of needless hostility. If it’s any consolation, my friends and I have been having a really good time with the Super Nt and Mega Sg over the holidays and I’m super grateful that you put in the work you did. Thanks man. 

I would also like to second this. While the haters are always going to be the loudest, there are still plenty of people out here enjoying your work and anxiously awaiting whatever lies in the future. Thanks for all you do (and have done), and happy New Year!

Edited December 31, 2019 by jamon1567

[Kaide]

1 hour ago, jamon1567 said:

That and jealousy I'd presume. 

There's the GNU/Stallman camp where the thinking is that if the software isn't free (as in speech *and* beer), then it's a violation of how intellectual property should work for software. I believe in a strong public domain, personally, something more in line with the original copyright act in the US, not what we have today (Life+X, where X is whatever Disney lobbied for last). But honestly, I see the value in letting creators experiment and decide how to share their work in the short term. Open, closed, shouldn't matter. At least not when people need to be able to get paid to put food on the table. 

 

It could also be some misplaced anger due to the behavior of companies like Hyperkin, that effectively profit off the OSS emulator work without contributing anything back. 

 

Or all of the above?

 

1 hour ago, jamon1567 said:

I would also like to second this. While the haters are always going to be the loudest, there are still plenty of people out here enjoying your work and anxiously awaiting whatever lies in the future. Thanks for all you do (and have done), and happy New Year!

 

I'll say that the work Kevtris has done has helped get me invested in holding onto a collection of actual cartridges again. The 16-bit consoles were some of my favorites, so having the Super NT and Mega SG really helps me preserve some of that nostalgia.

Edited December 31, 2019 by Kaide

[Pixelboy]

8 hours ago, kevtris said:

They sure are not endearing anyone to the Mister cause with all their hate and abuse towards me.  I just am curious to know what I did to them to make them detest me so.

You wrote the following six words: "My cores are not open-source." Hence, you must be evil.   

 

[vanfanel]

@kevtris

 

I did not know that the MiSTer community was SO hostile towards you or your work. Sorry to hear that. I enjoy both the MiSTer opensource cores and your cores on both the MegaSG and SuperNT, and I can say each alternative has its pros and cons, so no need to bash other peoples work.

In the future, I hope to see some MiSTer cores on the Analogue-8/Pocket, etc., too, since they have been announced as "open", so both worlds will start to merge.

 

About this part:

"As for that blending, I already have something similar, and the idea was to only make it blend when it needed to, instead of all the time.  This way the whole screen doesn't look like someone slathered Vaseline on it.  I can make it blend all the time instead of selectively maybe by setting a slider to min or max and might add that when I do some other changes/fixes."

 

Yes, please do so! As far as I can understand, selective blending is what causes all those problems with ugly fonts, etc. Having optional non-selective blending by moving the slider will be "perfect" in the sense that actual composite blending is not selective at all, so we will get to see the games as they looked on composite CRT TVs.

So, my theory seems to be confirmed: before being selective, your blending was simple/non-selective, like the one that has been later implemented in the opensource Genesis core. Then you made it selective as a mean for "improvement" (but it does not look that good actually, at least for my taste: that is not how Genesis games looked like).

Edited December 31, 2019 by vanfanel

[Thrakk]

I'm wondering if Zimba 3000 would ever be possible with Analogue and what it would like. I still haven't bought any Analogue products because I've been hoping for a Kevtris fpga console that would support both NES and SNES.

[CZroe]

I'm wondering if Zimba 3000 would ever be possible with Analogue and what it would like. I still haven't bought any Analogue products because I've been hoping for a Kevtris fpga console that would support both NES and SNES.

There's still hope, since Kevtris still owns his IP (I think?). I don't know if the Zimba 3000 was ever planned to have a bunch of cart slots or adapters but I hope so. The MiSTer folks seem satisfied without them but I definitely prefer playing from my original carts.

[SegaSnatcher]

31 minutes ago, Thrakk said:

I'm wondering if Zimba 3000 would ever be possible with Analogue and what it would like. I still haven't bought any Analogue products because I've been hoping for a Kevtris fpga console that would support both NES and SNES.

Pocket will basically be a Zimba 3000 light.   

[AtariNerd]

Had seen this at the top of my FaceBook feed, just prior to going through posts I so-far hadn't read in this thread. People are quick to presume and accuse others of grafting on to their personal passion-projects and work, for personal gain. It's an understandable and defensible position , because doing so, not recognizing the work of others, especially if given freely, would be unjust.  Wielding it as a weapon towards the reputation of others, without due evidence, based on a philosophical stance, is not a valid course of argumentation, however.  

 

[CZroe]

Guess Krikzz has to deal with this too.

 

That said, I was kinda surprised that he was suddenly replicating system hardware since it's out of left field compared to his usual fare. Heck, even SD2SNES was mostly other contributors. Seems odd that clone Sega CD/Mega CD hardware was so elusive a year ago yet now we have three presumably unrelated implementations (Krikzz, MiSTer, Terra Onion). Not saying I'm skeptical... just impressed and wouldn't be surprised if we learn of a dev partner we weren't aware of.

 

A few days ago Krikzz demonstrated an FPGA dev board plugged into an AV Famicom where he got sync through the cartridge port the same way as MMC5 does. It may have even been RGB, since he was discussing it within the context of a potential plug and play RGB mod. Like Hi-Def NES and NESRGB, a kit like this would require replicating an NES PPU in FPGA. Seeing this made me realize that Krikzz really was better at this kind of thing than I expected. Granted, Sega CD/Mega CD took the Terra Onion guys years and I expect it to be much more difficult than the PPU alone.

 

 

 

 

[AtariNerd]

^They probably have access to some helpful system-level documentation, from...oh, who knows who.  

[seastalker]

I am very sorry to hear about any hostility in life, especially in an area of my escapism: gaming. I respect great work and I'm simply too old and lack the time for both the cool tables and the nerd tables at lunch. I REALLY I don't have the time, and have never been on a discord and barely know what that is, so I am unaware of the daily drama. 

 

I watch positive people like Smokemonster and celebrate all things FPGA.  I got a MiST after my jaw dropped from a video explaining it by Phil's Computer Lab. Then I looked for all FPGA projects for Commodore and Atari, then discovered MiSTer and Kevtris's Zimba 3000 page here. That became Analogue consoles and my FPGA devices include MIST, MISTER, MEGASD, MEGASG and probably a flash cart or two I am forgetting. I plan to buy a Pocket, dock and DAC, and maybe whatever the '8' is.  I am a 'cheerleader' for all platforms, and hope for Mister compatibility with the DAC one day.

 

So that said, I have had pleasant exchanges with Kevtris as well as some of the MiSTer devs. I have donated money and gear to members here with youtube channels and have tipped some for pm tech help. I send love and peace to all here and hope for less 'discord' among everyone as a hope for the new year.  You are ALL awesome in my eyes. Mister cores on the Pocket might be the 'Simon and Garfunkel' setting aside of differences many of us would welcome.

[RetrogamerX]

And that's the Analogue Hyperdub sold out.   

 

Glad I have mine ?

[seastalker]

If people were to guess from previous releases, any speculation when we can pre-order the Pocket, Dock... and DAC?? Wait, the DAC says Sold Out as well.  Was there even a pre-order?  I hope they plan to stock more. I was going to save on shipping by buying it WITH the Pocket and hopefully the dock all in one go.

[NE146]

4 hours ago, seastalker said:

 Wait, the DAC says Sold Out as well.  Was there even a pre-order? 

Yeah there was a pre-order.. that's how it got sold out.

 

It didn't last too long.. so whether there will be more after this first round is anybody's guess. Analogue's sometimes hard to figure out that way.