FPGA Based Videogame System

[Newsdee]

No point to stay up all might speculating, but my wild guess is that they planned an NT Mini-like console for 8bit systems, but decided to reissue the original instead. That is minimum development work, so more return on original imvestment.

[Sneakyturtleegg]

I'm still going to guess that the Analogue 8 is vaporware at this point. They let the trademark expire on purpose, and for a calculated reason. Someone didn't forget to do the paperwork. They moved on, at least name wise. The name probably implied too narrow of a scope for their next project after the Pocket. The NES is old hat for Analogue. The NT Mini v2 will be their 3rd iteration of the NES, and I don't see them revisiting it anytime soon.

 

With the dock, I can see the Pocket being just as good of a console as it would be a handheld. With the open source element, it is feasible the Pocket gets a legitimate NES core. That would be the solution for a less expensive Analogue NES. They would simply sell more Pockets instead of R&Ding another NES system. Better business sense.

 

Analogue will continue to progress and do something new after the Pocket. That's how they roll.

 

 

[Pixelboy]

7 hours ago, Sneakyturtleegg said:

I'm still going to guess that the Analogue 8 is vaporware at this point. They let the trademark expire on purpose, and for a calculated reason. Someone didn't forget to do the paperwork. They moved on, at least name wise. The name probably implied too narrow of a scope for their next project after the Pocket. The NES is old hat for Analogue. The NT Mini v2 will be their 3rd iteration of the NES, and I don't see them revisiting it anytime soon.

 

With the dock, I can see the Pocket being just as good of a console as it would be a handheld. With the open source element, it is feasible the Pocket gets a legitimate NES core. That would be the solution for a less expensive Analogue NES. They would simply sell more Pockets instead of R&Ding another NES system. Better business sense.

 

Analogue will continue to progress and do something new after the Pocket. That's how they roll.

It could be as simple as the new run of Nt Minis being a replacement of sorts for the Analogue 8.

 

I can only speculate on this, but the relationship between Analogue and Kevin is bound to end at some point in the future. Perhaps that point will come after the Pocket + Dock. I say this based on the open-source component of the Pocket.

 

[CZroe]

It could be as simple as the new run of Nt Minis being a replacement of sorts for the Analogue 8.

 

I can only speculate on this, but the relationship between Analogue and Kevin is bound to end at some point in the future. Perhaps that point will come after the Pocket + Dock. I say this based on the open-source component of the Pocket.

 

In that case I don't think they would have limited production.

 

[Intense.Mark]

47 minutes ago, Pixelboy said:

I can only speculate on this, but the relationship between Analogue and Kevin is bound to end at some point in the future. Perhaps that point will come after the Pocket + Dock. I say this based on the open-source component of the Pocket.

 

Kevin repeatedly stated before that he wanted to do Neo Geo. I hope that Analogue will give him the opportunity if your speculation is true.

[Pixelboy]

1 hour ago, CZroe said:

In that case I don't think they would have limited production.

 

What makes you say that?

 

[Pixelboy]

1 hour ago, Intense.Mark said:

Kevin repeatedly stated before that he wanted to do Neo Geo. I hope that Analogue will give him the opportunity if your speculation is true.

If Analogue was to do a Neo Geo FPGA, it would probably be designed for Neo Geo cartridges. There aren't many of those in the wild, and they're expensive, so that greatly reduces the market demand for such an FPGA-based console. I wouldn't hold my breath, especially with the Neo Geo Mini that's already available.

Edited April 1, 2020 by Pixelboy

[CZroe]

What makes you say that?

Because Nt Mini V2 was extremely limited. If they were replacing an Analogue 8 console that was expected to sell more than the Nt Mini then, well, the Nt Mini V2 wouldn't do much replacing when numbers were so severely limited.

If Analogue was to do a Neo Geo FPGA, it would probably be designed for Neo Geo cartridges. There aren't many of those in the wild, and they're expensive, so that greatly reduces the market demand for such an FPGA-based console. I wouldn't hold my breath, especially with the Neo Geo Mini that's already available.

Don't ignore the Neo Geo flash carts and potential jailbreak. Also, Analogue has a long history of consolizing Neo Geo MVS boards, so market-demand obviously isn't their concern here. They could potentially make it accept Neo Geo CD titles with no cartridge port. AES/MVS support could be adapters or limited to jailbreaks. Alternatively, they could even strike up a deal with SNK just like Tommo did. Analogue + Kevtris would certainly make a better machine than Tommo or SNK did, which would answer all the fans disappointed by the "quality" of the products from SNK and Tommo over the last 7 years.

I think it would be cool if it could run titles from the Neo Geo X SD cards without even jailbreaking. Except for the pinout they are standard SD cards but from what I can tell the filesystem is non-standard.

[Intense.Mark]

51 minutes ago, CZroe said:

Don't ignore the Neo Geo flash carts and potential jailbreak. Also, Analogue has a long history of consolizing Neo Geo MVS boards, so market-demand obviously isn't their concern here. They could potentially make it accept Neo Geo CD titles with no cartridge port. AES/MVS support could be adapters or limited to jailbreaks. Alternatively, they could even strike up a deal with SNK just like Tommo did. Analogue + Kevtris would certainly make a better machine than Tommo or SNK did, which would answer all the fans disappointed by the "quality" of the products from SNK and Tommo over the last 7 years.

I think it would be cool if it could run titles from the Neo Geo X SD cards without even jailbreaking. Except for the pinout they are standard SD cards but from what I can tell the filesystem is non-standard.

Yes. Neo Geo CMVS was Analogue’s first product which is basically the arcade version so here’s hoping we get an FPGA version.

Edited April 1, 2020 by Intense.Mark

[Sneakyturtleegg]

Nobody outside of Analogue knows what the NT Mini v1 or v2 sales numbers actually are. Everyone else is just speculating. Also, Analogue knows the limitation of their resources so I would guess they cut off NT Mini v2 pre-orders so they could still deliver what they are saying and still make the maximum amount of money. And what does "limited" really mean? None of it really matters. Analogue put a fork in the Analogue 8 trademark. They moved on. So should we. The Pocket is a much more interesting system with a ton of potential.

[CZroe]

Nobody outside of Analogue knows what the NT Mini v1 or v2 sales numbers actually are. Everyone else is just speculating. Also, Analogue knows the limitation of their resources so I would guess they cut off NT Mini v2 pre-orders so they could still deliver what they are saying and still make the maximum amount of money. And what does "limited" really mean? None of it really matters. Analogue put a fork in the Analogue 8 trademark. They moved on. So should we. The Pocket is a much more interesting system with a ton of potential.

Pretty sure I read here that the Nt Mini V2 was limited to 500 units.

 

Also, they were pretty clear that this is "one final run," so there's no question what "limited" means in this case.

 

 

[Sneakyturtleegg]

 

1 hour ago, CZroe said:

Pretty sure I read here that the Nt Mini V2 was limited to 500 units.

 

Also, they were pretty clear that this is "one final run," so there's no question what "limited" means in this case.

 

 

 

500 units? Source and link please. Pretty sure I didn't read the number of units of the NT Mini v2 being limited to 500, or any number for that matter. Pocket also says "Limited" and pre-orders aren't even available yet. It is an ambiguous and relative marketing term.

[F34R]

I would be surprised if it was 500 units only, but I doubt it.  It took way too long on the pre-orders for it to only be 500; I'm guessing.

[Pixelboy]

I would also request a source on that number of 500, but if they're producing aluminum enclosures like the original Nt Mini run, then that could possibly explain this surprisingly low number.

 

[CZroe]

I can't easily find it on mobile but I think it was referred to here in this thread. Could have been confusion with the $500 price, but I recall someone here linking to Twitter or referencing Discord or something. Maybe Kevtris can tell us how many they made for the preorder? Also, they may have made more for warranty spares that will get sold later when enough time has passed.

500 does sound low considering how many signatures they wanted on the petition.

[NE146]

I thought the general consensus was it was in the ~5000 range actually. But who really knows except that dude.

[cacophony]

1 hour ago, NE146 said:

I thought the general consensus was it was in the ~5000 range actually. But who really knows except that dude.

Yes, based on the sequential order numbers the Nt Mini v2 appears to have sold about 5k units

 

The "limited" was just in terms of time. They closed preorders exactly one week after they started.

Edited April 2, 2020 by cacophony

[ErebusMaligan]

So I just got time to mess with my replacement GG cart adapter, and I noticed it isn't loading the settings associated with the GG core, it is still set as Genesis mode when running the cartridge.  I wasn't sure if this is the expected behavior or if it was supposed to load the core settings.

 

I went back and read this topic around the late 500s pages and there was at least one post of someone saying it was supposed to know which core to use based on the adapter being inserted.  I went back and tested my SMS card adapter, and it too only loads the genesis settings.   The games seem to play fine in either case, but the video settings and core settings are displaying the genesis options.  I am running the JB 7.7 fw.

 

I'm just trying to figure out if this is the normal behavior, or if something is amiss with my setup, and what that could be.

[kevtris]

1 hour ago, ErebusMaligan said:

So I just got time to mess with my replacement GG cart adapter, and I noticed it isn't loading the settings associated with the GG core, it is still set as Genesis mode when running the cartridge.  I wasn't sure if this is the expected behavior or if it was supposed to load the core settings.

 

I went back and read this topic around the late 500s pages and there was at least one post of someone saying it was supposed to know which core to use based on the adapter being inserted.  I went back and tested my SMS card adapter, and it too only loads the genesis settings.   The games seem to play fine in either case, but the video settings and core settings are displaying the genesis options.  I am running the JB 7.7 fw.

 

I'm just trying to figure out if this is the normal behavior, or if something is amiss with my setup, and what that could be.

yeah this is a known issue.  press reset or change settings to "boot to menu" to fix it until an update is released.

[ErebusMaligan]

15 minutes ago, kevtris said:

yeah this is a known issue.  press reset or change settings to "boot to menu" to fix it until an update is released.

Ah, OK.  Thanks for the info. 

 

Just to note:

I was already on boot to menu, and it still has this problem. 

Pressing reset works for normal GG carts, but does not work if the cart is a GG Everdrive.

[kevtris]

20 minutes ago, ErebusMaligan said:

Ah, OK.  Thanks for the info. 

 

Just to note:

I was already on boot to menu, and it still has this problem. 

Pressing reset works for normal GG carts, but does not work if the cart is a GG Everdrive.

this could be because the gg everdrive starts up in SMS mode maybe. 

[ErebusMaligan]

23 minutes ago, kevtris said:

this could be because the gg everdrive starts up in SMS mode maybe. 

Maybe.  It could just be an issue with the everdrive itself not accepting the reset signal.

 

If you hit reset It just basically loads up a solid colored screen and freezes.  If it's at the menu, it loads up a gray solid screen.   If it was a sonic game, it loaded up a turquoise solid screen.  But it never goes anywhere from there.

 

 

[vanfanel]

3 hours ago, kevtris said:

yeah this is a known issue.  press reset or change settings to "boot to menu" to fix it until an update is released.

Could you *please* include the option for un-selective pixel blending in this update? Pretty please! I wont ask for anything more. Just that small option (it could work by moving the depth slide all the way up, for example).

[newtmonkey]

I've been having an issue with hybrid scanlines on my Super NT, and I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced this.  It's hard to find information online as most people seem to use Super NT/Mega SG running in 1080p without scanlines.

 

I'm having some problems with scanlines at 720p:

 

(1) Firmware 4.9:

Scanlines in brighter colors (for example, white, red, yellow) are completely absent.  You can sort of adjust this by lowering the "scanline depth" setting, but lowering it to the point where scanlines are shown in the brighter colors basically makes it look identical to standard scanlines.

 

(2) Firmware 4.7:

This resolves issue (1), but now scanlines are not the same consistent width over the screen; there is a band in the middle (roughly 20-30% of the screen) where scanlines are clearly thinner, which makes the image in this area brighter than the upper and lower parts of the screen.

 

I found this post on reddit that mentions a similar issue, and someone replied indicating that it is well-known on super NT discord that 720p scanlines are bugged:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SuperNt/comments/f1eo6x/supernt_49_scanlines_at_720p_super_weird/

 

In the meantime, I've set the system to 1080p and am using my TV to scale the image up slightly so that the image is not so small.  Scanlines looks really decent, but I would obviously prefer 720p without having to scale the image with my TV, etc.  Has anyone heard any recent news on this, possibly on the SuperNT discord?

 

[Steven Pendleton]

2 hours ago, newtmonkey said:

I've been having an issue with hybrid scanlines on my Super NT, and I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced this.  It's hard to find information online as most people seem to use Super NT/Mega SG running in 1080p without scanlines.

 

I'm having some problems with scanlines at 720p:

 

(1) Firmware 4.9:

Scanlines in brighter colors (for example, white, red, yellow) are completely absent.  You can sort of adjust this by lowering the "scanline depth" setting, but lowering it to the point where scanlines are shown in the brighter colors basically makes it look identical to standard scanlines.

 

(2) Firmware 4.7:

This resolves issue (1), but now scanlines are not the same consistent width over the screen; there is a band in the middle (roughly 20-30% of the screen) where scanlines are clearly thinner, which makes the image in this area brighter than the upper and lower parts of the screen.

 

I found this post on reddit that mentions a similar issue, and someone replied indicating that it is well-known on super NT discord that 720p scanlines are bugged:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SuperNt/comments/f1eo6x/supernt_49_scanlines_at_720p_super_weird/

 

In the meantime, I've set the system to 1080p and am using my TV to scale the image up slightly so that the image is not so small.  Scanlines looks really decent, but I would obviously prefer 720p without having to scale the image with my TV, etc.  Has anyone heard any recent news on this, possibly on the SuperNT discord?

 

Yes, the scanlines seem to look strange at 720p now, and it's one of the reasons that I've gone back to using 1080p or my Mega Drive + OSSC on occasion for Sega. I don't have component for my Super Famicom, so I still use the Super Nt for those games. On one of the systems (I forgot which one), I am still seeing the middle third of the screen as being considerably brighter than the top or bottom, but I only really notice it in places like the white areas on the Konami logo screen.