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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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On 1/18/2020 at 3:21 PM, vanfanel said:

I have found this video that explains how important blending is on the Sega Megadrive games, and why having a coherent, complete, un-selective blending option like the MiSTer core has is an almost basic thing with the Megadrive in particular:

 

Dithering on the Sega Genesis

 

You will understand why I am asking so much to get it done right on the MegaSG even if I am already enjoying this on the MiSTer :)

 

Well, after I saw your comments here I test it using the genesis core in a Mister and to be honest I didn't like it. The whole screen seems like a composite video quality ☹️. I prefer to lost transparency and have weird checkboards but keep RGB video quality. I understand that some people will prefer otherwise and the best thing is to have option to enable/disable or even better a slide to adjust the effect. My MegaSG didnt arrive yet so I cannot say if it's broken to me or not. 

 

But I have to comment that a a month ago I played Street of Rage 2 3D on a New 3DS and the yellow light inside the bar was a perfect transparency while kepping the high quality of image. But this perfection only occurs with 3D effect enabled. With 3D off the light looks like any emulator with stripes in the light. Also I recommend  this game (and SOR 1 3D) to anyone that like 3D effect.

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I thought I was sorta in the know with this stuff, but never heard of Polymega.

I think it was called something else before, like Retroblox. Perhaps you heard of that?

 

It's been in development hell for years but it is making steady progress. I was thoroughly unenthusiastic for it during the crowdfunding phase since it just seemed to be another illegitimate Raspberry Pi with some CD console emulators and a CD drive (like SeeDi). It's actually shaping up to be a lot more than I expected with an eShop and a lot of commercially developed BIOS replacements and such to avoid some of the legal trappings of less legitimate emulation boxes. Hope they can get an SNES9x commercial license, since there's no way it's going to run Hagane/BSNES. atariage_icon_wink.gif

 

The idea here is that you can install games to the unit after putting in the CD or plugging the cartridge into the module. No need for the cartridges or discs again. The cart slot module is also a controller adapter for original games. It seems that they are being smart and the controllers they make for each module aim to be a bit more than the standard controller where appropriate. For example, the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 module includes a 6-button controller, which means it'll likely be the only modern 6-button replacement controller in production. I sure hope they sell extras!

 

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1 hour ago, malrak said:

I thought I was sorta in the know with this stuff, but never heard of Polymega.

Yeah, I don't really think it's something most here would be into.  It's mainly emulation... pretty good from what I've seen.  They may add some FPGA components in the future.  Anyways, I am happy for them and their fans but it just is not for me as I need either the original console or an accurate FPGA implementation. 

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On 12/30/2019 at 12:03 PM, SegaSnatcher said:

They seem to forget all his past contributions like the .NSF format and the countless documentations he has provided on different hardware.

Hi, I've been a reader of this site for quite a while and I've been recently reading quite a bit of this thread, and this caught my attention.

 

I wanted to find more info on this, so I went to the NSF page. Under the Computing heading, I found "NES Sound Format (.nsf), an audio file format for the Nintendo Entertainment System" which should go to the page about NSF, but instead redirects to the general NES page, without any mention of the NSF format or Kevin/Kevtris what so ever.

 

After doing a little digging at archive.org, using the link from the NSF disambiguation page, there was indeed a dedicated NSF page, and it's last snapshot was on Feb 2, 2017, before being changed to a redirect.

 

I really believe that this page should be restored, and I'm wondering if anyone knows what the reason for this change was. Given that timing, I wonder if it could have had anything to do with people who were hateful towards Kevtris from places like the Mister commnity that I recall reading earlier in this thread which happened to be around 2017.

 

 

On 1/18/2020 at 10:21 AM, vanfanel said:

I have found this video that explains how important blending is on the Sega Megadrive games, and why having a coherent, complete, un-selective blending option like the MiSTer core has is an almost basic thing with the Megadrive in particular:

 

Dithering on the Sega Genesis

 

You will understand why I am asking so much to get it done right on the MegaSG even if I am already enjoying this on the MiSTer :)

 

IMHO, most, if not all, original games on the Genesis/MegaDrive were designed with CRTs in mind and many developers took advantage of that to do tricks like pseudo transparencies, and things like the waterfalls in Green Hill Zone in Sonic 1.

 

So from a preservation standpoint, being able to see the games the way their makers had intended, as close as possible to how it'd look on a CRT via composite or even RF[1] (and perhaps SCART for EU and other PAL regions[2]), is important. It should really be as much a focus as being able to also see the actual pixels too. Many games made good use of those effects that just can't be seen in high quality RGB/raw-pixel modes.

 

 

[1] I used the latter on my model 1 back in the early 90s before I even knew of the composite adapter for the DIN connector port, and in the mid 90s finally got the adapter when I saw it at a friends. So both the composite and RF look feel right to me, with composite being preferable for the more stable image and better quality while still showing the artifact based tricks. I was also used to using composite on my original NES.

 

[2] I'm not sure how those artifact based effects actually looked there, as I understand that SCART allowed for higher quality, though it was still analogue and used on CRTs then.

 

Edit: Typo fixes

Edited by blzmarcel
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2 hours ago, blzmarcel said:

Hi, I've been a reader of this site for quite a while and I've been recently reading quite a bit of this thread, and this caught my attention.

 

I wanted to find more info on this, so I went to the NSF page. Under the Computing heading, I found "NES Sound Format (.nsf), an audio file format for the Nintendo Entertainment System" which should go to the page about NSF, but instead redirects to the general NES page, without any mention of the NSF format or Kevin/Kevtris what so ever.

 

After doing a little digging at archive.org, using the link from the NSF disambiguation page, there was indeed a dedicated NSF page, and it's last snapshot was on Feb 2, 2017, before being changed to a redirect.

 

I really believe that this page should be restored, and I'm wondering if anyone knows what the reason for this change was. Given that timing, I wonder if it could have had anything to do with people who were hateful towards Kevtris from places like the Mister commnity that I recall reading earlier in this thread which happened to be around 2017.

Hopefully this gets you closer to what you are looking for:

 

http://kevtris.org/nes/nsfspec.txt

 

This text document is the NSF Specification sheet that Kevtris devised years ago, complete with revision history since 1.00.

 

http://kevtris.org/nes/NESAudioRipping.TXT

 

This text document is an NSF ripping guide that a guy named Chris Covell wrote in tandem with Kevtris and another guy named Michel Iwaniec.

 

http://kevtris.org/Projects/hardnes/

 

The first .NSF player ever created.

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4 hours ago, Sho said:

Hopefully this gets you closer to what you are looking for:

 

http://kevtris.org/nes/nsfspec.txt

 

This text document is the NSF Specification sheet that Kevtris devised years ago, complete with revision history since 1.00.

 

http://kevtris.org/nes/NESAudioRipping.TXT

 

This text document is an NSF ripping guide that a guy named Chris Covell wrote in tandem with Kevtris and another guy named Michel Iwaniec.

 

http://kevtris.org/Projects/hardnes/

 

The first .NSF player ever created.

Thanks. I've bookmarked those links. Though I still really feel that the original NSF page should be restored, or at least, made clear why in Hades' flaming arsehole it was removed, if there was an actual valid reason for doing so. To me it feels suspicious.

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On 1/21/2020 at 8:23 AM, blzmarcel said:

Hi, I've been a reader of this site for quite a while and I've been recently reading quite a bit of this thread, and this caught my attention.

 

I wanted to find more info on this, so I went to the NSF page. Under the Computing heading, I found "NES Sound Format (.nsf), an audio file format for the Nintendo Entertainment System" which should go to the page about NSF, but instead redirects to the general NES page, without any mention of the NSF format or Kevin/Kevtris what so ever.

 

After doing a little digging at archive.org, using the link from the NSF disambiguation page, there was indeed a dedicated NSF page, and it's last snapshot was on Feb 2, 2017, before being changed to a redirect.

 

I really believe that this page should be restored, and I'm wondering if anyone knows what the reason for this change was. Given that timing, I wonder if it could have had anything to do with people who were hateful towards Kevtris from places like the Mister commnity that I recall reading earlier in this thread which happened to be around 2017.

Would there be any objections to just restoring the original page to how it was on 2017-02-02 ? I still find that change that I outlined above to be a bit suspicious, especially in that I can't find any reason for the change and can't fathom anyone without ill motives wanting to take it down.

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10 hours ago, Toth said:

Yeah, I think if you rely on email you will miss out if they really are limited.  My guess is you are going to need to see the Twitter posts that people are making about it going live and hope their website isn't crashing.

 

I hope not.  That would suck for those of us who don't use Twitter or Facebook or any of that jive.

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On 1/28/2020 at 1:51 AM, SegaSnatcher said:

I seriously hope I'm not sleeping when that email for Pocket sales go live.  

Best quote ever.  I can't predict demand, but comments here make me think to press my order button as soon as I get an email.  I don't know if I would wish for a pre-announcement announcement or if it would be better to just get the email.  I REALLY need one of these as a tool for music production first. Atari Lynx is a big plus though and after that, NGP and Gamegear.  Oh and I hear there was a thing called Gameboy that had a niche fanbase in the 1990s.

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On 1/24/2020 at 10:56 PM, blzmarcel said:

Would there be any objections to just restoring the original page to how it was on 2017-02-02 ? I still find that change that I outlined above to be a bit suspicious, especially in that I can't find any reason for the change and can't fathom anyone without ill motives wanting to take it down.

Take it up with whomever decided to delete the page. I doubt it was anyone here on AA.

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