FPGA Based Videogame System

[blzmarcel]

8 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

If you're talking about ColecoVision controllers on Mega Sg, not supported due to different pin stuff between the Sega and ColecoVision controllers, even though they both use the same type of connection.

 

Also Super Nt is now completely sold out.

Yeah I was talking about on the Mega Sg. I know that the pin outs are a little different, but I recall they were somewhat compatible, in that a Genesis/MegaDrive controller would work in a CV, which was only useful for games that didn't require the numpad to start; I remember doing this with a three button Genesis/Megadrive controller to play Pitfall! on my CV. I also know that a Genesis pad can also be used on an Atari 2600 and Master System, so there seems to be at least some commonality. I would be really surprised if the Mega Sg wouldn't be able to use a CV controller at all.

Edited March 10, 2020 by blzmarcel

[seastalker]

I tested the MegaSG with a colecovision controller and sometimes it is best to have a genesis controller in player two if you need to bypass the numeric pad screen, but I played games with it fine in many cases. That is odd about the SuperNT being sold out. I see no reason why they would not continue to sell it. Maybe they should just say "out of stock" instead while manufacturing plays catch up.

[Steven Pendleton]

Interesting. The manual says ColecoVision controllers are not supported, but if it still works somehow, that's interesting.

[gulps]

On 3/6/2020 at 7:16 PM, CZroe said:

On 3/6/2020 at 6:42 PM, RetrogamerX said:

That's it. Analogue Nt mini V2 sold out.  That was very quick.  I thought it would be up a week or 2 longer? They have jumped over a £1000 already on ebay.
 
Can only hope they do a cheaper nes model like the mega sg and super nt?

I'm sure they hold a certain quantity of extras for warranty spares that they will sell after they are no longer needed. This seems to be what they did with those recent special edition Super Nt and Mega Sg sales where they left out the controller (warranty units didn't need controllers).

 

I don't known if they will do for the V2. Because they didn't for the Nt Mini V1 ("5V version" run).

 

My Nt Mini has a faulty power on when restart. The fault appeared three months after the purchase. I had waiting more than six months for the replacement. Nearby a year. They always sends me an email for wait a long more for the PCB replacement.

 

Finally at nearly one year latter Analogue send me an email to ship the Nt Mini for repair in warranty. I never send due finally I sholved myself the error hopefully.

 

I didn't trust to them due high prices on eBay. My supspicios was they sold all.

I hope they have learned how to keep for spares.

[Toth]

5 hours ago, gulps said:

 

I don't known if they will do for the V2. Because they didn't for the Nt Mini V1 ("5V version" run).

 

My Nt Mini has a faulty power on when restart. The fault appeared three months after the purchase. I had waiting more than six months for the replacement. Nearby a year. They always sends me an email for wait a long more for the PCB replacement.

 

Finally at nearly one year latter Analogue send me an email to ship the Nt Mini for repair in warranty. I never send due finally I sholved myself the error hopefully.

 

I didn't trust to them due high prices on eBay. My supspicios was they sold all.

I hope they have learned how to keep for spares.

How did you diagnose and fix your problem?

[Enragedwhale]

So we’ve hit 30 days since the announcement of the faulty GG adaptors with no replacement in sight. I guess delays are to be expected with covid-19 but it’d be nice if Analogue actually updated us after we spent over $100 on something they told us to throw in the bin. 
 

 

[XtraSmiley]

Yeah man, that sucks. Especially when those things were suppose to be cheaper and also, why ARE they $100? 

 

Not the best business practices, but in a way, the items are higher quality for such a low volume, so someone has to pay the price! I just wish there was MUCH better communication out of the company.

 

Also, why the long silence from Kevtris on all the cores? When/where is the core update for the NTM? Why won't he release the cores for all the products, they are the same FPGA right? I mean, people who are going to buy them have bought them, at this point a core release for everything isn't going to affect sales, hell it could actually improve sales.

 

I guess I just don't understand the piece meal approach to these products.

[Enragedwhale]

Yeah I understand the costs (except postage), delays etc just wish they’d be much more transparent. With the cart adaptors it was a year of silence. 
 

[Drunk_Caterpillar]

2 hours ago, XtraSmiley said:

Also, why the long silence from Kevtris on all the cores? When/where is the core update for the NTM? Why won't he release the cores for all the products, they are the same FPGA right? I mean, people who are going to buy them have bought them, at this point a core release for everything isn't going to affect sales, hell it could actually improve sales.

I mean, Analogue isn’t running a non-profit foundation to preserve video game hardware here; they’re the video game equivalent of a boutique hi-fi stereo company. Letting users run every core for every console on one machine doesn’t  really make sense from an aesthetic or financial perspective. As long as the console does exactly what is advertised, that’s really where their responsibility ends—any extra jailbreak firmware functionality is a cherry on top.

[Steven Pendleton]

19 hours ago, XtraSmiley said:

Yeah man, that sucks. Especially when those things were suppose to be cheaper and also, why ARE they $100? 

 

Not the best business practices, but in a way, the items are higher quality for such a low volume, so someone has to pay the price! I just wish there was MUCH better communication out of the company.

 

Also, why the long silence from Kevtris on all the cores? When/where is the core update for the NTM? Why won't he release the cores for all the products, they are the same FPGA right? I mean, people who are going to buy them have bought them, at this point a core release for everything isn't going to affect sales, hell it could actually improve sales.

 

I guess I just don't understand the piece meal approach to these products.

Putting aside that the single goal of any company is to make money, would all of the cores even fit onto 1 system? I don't know the capacity of the FPGA, but I think I read somewhere that one of the Analogue system's FPGAs is more or less full. Someone else can go find that statement, though; I'm too lazy.

[Enragedwhale]

1 hour ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Putting aside that the single goal of any company is to make money, would all of the cores even fit onto 1 system? I don't know the capacity of the FPGA, but I think I read somewhere that one of the Analogue system's FPGAs is more or less full. Someone else can go find that statement, though; I'm too lazy.

They already do. I believe they load in and out of the firmware.
 

There is jailbreak firmware from Kevtris available for the V1 NT mini with all the extra cores. People are speculating as to if it will work on the new V2. I believe it will and analogue are just being quiet about it as they always are, but none of us know for certain. 

[Steven Pendleton]

6 minutes ago, Enragedwhale said:

They already do. I believe they load in and out of the firmware.
 

There is jailbreak firmware from Kevtris available for the V1 NT mini with all the extra cores. People are speculating as to if it will work on the new V2. I believe it will and analogue are just being quiet about it as they always are, but none of us know for certain. 

I meant put all of the Nt Mini cores + the Super Nt core + Mega Sg cores all on the same FPGA simultaneously. I do not know if the capacity is big enough for that.

[CZroe]

Putting aside that the single goal of any company is to make money, would all of the cores even fit onto 1 system? I don't know the capacity of the FPGA, but I think I read somewhere that one of the Analogue system's FPGAs is more or less full. Someone else can go find that statement, though; I'm too lazy.

That just means there isn't room for more with that core.

 

They already do. I believe they load in and out of the firmware.

 

There is jailbreak firmware from Kevtris available for the V1 NT mini with all the extra cores. People are speculating as to if it will work on the new V2. I believe it will and analogue are just being quiet about it as they always are, but none of us know for certain. 

Exactly. This is what they mean by "Field Programmable" in FPGA. It means the configuration of the logic gates can be changed in the field as opposed to a programmable logic device like a CPLD. That's what happens when you switch cores and the FPGA reconfigures itself to replicate hardware for another system. When an FPGA is almost "full" it means that there may not be enough spare logical elements to replicate anything else in that configuration since most have already been assigned a task.

 

I meant put all of the Nt Mini cores + the Super Nt core + Mega Sg cores all on the same FPGA simultaneously. I do not know if the capacity is big enough for that.

The FPGA would only need capacity for the largest core since it would be field-programmable. When you pick a game that needs a different core the FPGA is reconfigured with a different core. The cores are typically stored in external flash memory.

[Toth]

Analogue responded to someone on March 6th about the Game Gear adapters being on time and shipping soon.

 

 

[XtraSmiley]

23 hours ago, Drunk_Caterpillar said:

I mean, Analogue isn’t running a non-profit foundation to preserve video game hardware here; they’re the video game equivalent of a boutique hi-fi stereo company. Letting users run every core for every console on one machine doesn’t  really make sense from an aesthetic or financial perspective. As long as the console does exactly what is advertised, that’s really where their responsibility ends—any extra jailbreak firmware functionality is a cherry on top.

Why not? You think a SNES machine that plays only SNES will sell more than a SNES machine that plays 15 different systems?

[XtraSmiley]

6 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Putting aside that the single goal of any company is to make money, would all of the cores even fit onto 1 system? I don't know the capacity of the FPGA, but I think I read somewhere that one of the Analogue system's FPGAs is more or less full. Someone else can go find that statement, though; I'm too lazy.

Yeah, you don't understand how FPGAs work I'm afraid. They can hold an unlimited (limited by only your SD card size) number of cores since they load them up one at a time. The limit these specific FPGAs have is the level of complexity of the core. They can do SNES/Genesis, maybe Neo Geo, but they are not big enough to do PSX.

[Steven Pendleton]

I was probably thinking of the reason that the Mega Sg can't do 32X/CD games without additional hardware support. In any case, that makes it so the reason that all of the cores aren't all together is because someone (Taber, most likely) wants them separate. The whole point of Analogue's consoles is that they run games from carts. Otherwise, just use the MiSTer, which has a huge advantage in that it isn't a product that is sold for profit. MiSTer gets new updates frequently, unlike Analogue systems.

 

People can say what they want about accuracy of one vs the other; MiSTer gets frequent updates on cores that are actively being worked on. Real carts are the focus of Analogue products.

26 minutes ago, XtraSmiley said:

Yeah, you don't understand how FPGAs work I'm afraid. They can hold an unlimited (limited by only your SD card size) number of cores since they load them up one at a time. The limit these specific FPGAs have is the level of complexity of the core. They can do SNES/Genesis, maybe Neo Geo, but they are not big enough to do PSX.

And that's why I never said I understand how they work. I chose my words carefully.

 

I should probably mention that I don't particularly care for the MiSTer very much, though. Might have to do with my choice of controller (feels wrong playing everything with a Saturn controller), but I never use it and prefer my real PC Engine/Mega Drive/Mega Sg/Super Nt over it.

Edited March 16, 2020 by Steven Pendleton

[Drunk_Caterpillar]

43 minutes ago, XtraSmiley said:

Why not? You think a SNES machine that plays only SNES will sell more than a SNES machine that plays 15 different systems?

I think that asking customers to buy two separate machines will probably yield more in sales than giving away all the capabilities in a single piece of hardware, yes. I'm not saying it's a technical hurdle or that consumers wouldn't want something like that; I'm saying that you're asking Analogue to release a MiSTer clone, which they have no interest in doing for a variety of reasons.

[XtraSmiley]

42 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

I was probably thinking of the reason that the Mega Sg can't do 32X/CD games without additional hardware support. In any case, that makes it so the reason that all of the cores aren't all together is because someone (Taber, most likely) wants them separate. The whole point of Analogue's consoles is that they run games from carts. Otherwise, just use the MiSTer, which has a huge advantage in that it isn't a product that is sold for profit. MiSTer gets new updates frequently, unlike Analogue systems.

 

People can say what they want about accuracy of one vs the other; MiSTer gets frequent updates on cores that are actively being worked on. Real carts are the focus of Analogue products.

And that's why I never said I understand how they work. I chose my words carefully.

 

I should probably mention that I don't particularly care for the MiSTer very much, though. Might have to do with my choice of controller (feels wrong playing everything with a Saturn controller), but I never use it and prefer my real PC Engine/Mega Drive/Mega Sg/Super Nt over it.

Fair enough. I think the 32x situation is that as a second system, if it was less complex, maybe the FPGA could do them both (Genesis and 32x), but since they are both rather complex, the FPGA doesn't have room to do them both simultaneously. 

 

I can't speak to MiSTer, but it does seem like the future once it is more streamlined. But then again, can an open source product ever become as easy to use as a closed source system (ie MAME vs a Retron 5). Note I didn't say as accurate, I said easy to use. Counter point, the OSSC vs the Frameister. 

[XtraSmiley]

1 minute ago, Drunk_Caterpillar said:

I think that asking customers to buy two separate machines will probably yield more in sales than giving away all the capabilities in a single piece of hardware, yes. I'm not saying it's a technical hurdle or that consumers wouldn't want something like that; I'm saying that you're asking Analogue to release a MiSTer clone, which they have no interest in doing for a variety of reasons.

And my original post said that most of the people who are buying two different systems have done so. At this point with sales slowing down, and all in one is probably going to squeeze out more sales.

 

But regardless, I agree with your point about a MiSTer clone, for now. I can totally see Analogue doing a multi system when all other sales have run dry.

[Drunk_Caterpillar]

22 minutes ago, XtraSmiley said:

And my original post said that most of the people who are buying two different systems have done so. At this point with sales slowing down, and all in one is probably going to squeeze out more sales.

The problem with that approach is once you give a mouse a cookie, he'll want a glass of milk. Lat's say that Analogue does this and they "port" the Sega cores to the SuperNt and vice versa after a window of exclusivity. The first thing that would happen is that more than a few users would be pissed that Analogue "tricked" them in to buying two hardware platforms when one would've done the job, and everyone else would expect this to be consistent behaviour for every Analogue product moving forward. You'd have people commenting on every twitter post from here to eternity asking when X core would be ported to Y hardware, which would be a nightmare because that's an insane number of cores for one developer to support across multiple platforms. PLUS, let's say that a Analogue eventually releases PSX and N64 platforms; users would remember that it only took a year or so for Analogue's cores to get ported across to other Analogue platforms, so rather than buying both of those consoles on release they'd just buy one and wait for the cores to drop.

Supporting every core on every piece of hardware that Analogue releases is a lose-lose for everyone involved except for people who want to spend as little as possible to get as much as possible. It's not a viable long-term business strategy. As an aside, I also don't think it fits with a company that has a clear focus on aesthetics. Of course there are a lot of people who are fairly utilitarian when it comes to the software they run on their hardware, but it's clear from the way that Analogue designs and markets their consoles that the optics of playing a Super Nintendo game on a console with Sega design elements would rub them the wrong way. There are exceptions, of course—niche platforms like the NGPC or Lynx don't have enough demand for their own FPGA consoles, so of course they'll get rolled in to the DMG styled Analogue Pocket—but I think that's going to be a fairly rare event.

Edited March 16, 2020 by Drunk_Caterpillar

[NE146]

How would porting the Sega core to the Super NT work.. there's no slot for Genesis carts, and running roms isn't supported. 

[CZroe]

How would porting the Sega core to the Super NT work.. there's no slot for Genesis carts, and running roms isn't supported. 

Yeah. it would need to be unofficial/jailbreak functionality.

[NE146]

4 minutes ago, CZroe said:

1 hour ago, NE146 said:

How would porting the Sega core to the Super NT work.. there's no slot for Genesis carts, and running roms isn't supported. 

Yeah. it would need to be unofficial/jailbreak functionality.

Yeah but he's talking as if Analogue should do it. ?

[blzmarcel]

3 hours ago, Drunk_Caterpillar said:

I think that asking customers to buy two separate machines will probably yield more in sales than giving away all the capabilities in a single piece of hardware, yes. I'm not saying it's a technical hurdle or that consumers wouldn't want something like that; I'm saying that you're asking Analogue to release a MiSTer clone, which they have no interest in doing for a variety of reasons.

Isn't this essentially what Kevtris wanted to do with the Zimba 3000 that was mentioned earlier in the thread from time to time?