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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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Yet another example of Analogue's customer service failing!  During the pre-orders I was debating if it's worth i upgrading from my NT Mini & Analogue wouldn't give any details.  Of course I didn't pre-order & now I can't. Just don't understand why it would have been so hard to let us know the details, other than a new & improved cartridge slot.  

 

...probably because they had not committed to them at the time. Selling out of the preorders almost instantly probably convinced them that there was enough demand to go ahead with "Analogue 8" design work. You know: The one we expect will be a $200 plastic console. 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, CZroe said:

That's huge! Kind of upsetting at the same time... only reason I didn't preorder one is because we were told it was the same except for the cartridge slot and I didn't want to spend that much on something without horizontal interpolation for non-integer scaling.

 

That said, this kinda hints that there will be a plastic one, considering that Nt Mini Noir was announced as limited product and I strongly doubt they would do all this for only limited preordered units.

My thoughts, EXACTLY!

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Plastic one without the built in analog out, I would assume that for half the price..

 

I ordered one even if I had the original NtM, thought I would sell off my old one.

Not sure how deep the jailbreak will go on the new one, I would think.. just load NES-roms from SD-card. In that case Ill stick to the original.

 

The sugar for the old NtM owners are all the cores.

 

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Plastic one without the built in analog out, I would assume that for half the price..

 

I ordered one even if I had the original NtM, thought I would sell off my old one.

Not sure how deep the jailbreak will go on the new one, I would think.. just load NES-roms from SD-card. In that case Ill stick to the original.

 

The sugar for the old NtM owners are all the cores.

 

Exactly, but using the same FPGA and scaling and other FW design work. The analog options are what distinguish the Noir enough to justify making that at all.

 

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10 hours ago, vanfanel said:

This is very simple: Many major titles look BAD on the MegaSG because of the lack of proper pixel blending.

Such as? 

 

You had mentioned Earthworm Jim and Story of Thor, so I'm guessing these are two that "look bad?"   Any others?    I'm curious to have a look and see what you guys are talking about that I'm missing.

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Such as?    You had mentioned Earthworm Jim and Story of Thor, so I'm guessing these are two that "look bad?"   Any others?    I'm curious to have a look and see what you guys are talking about that I'm missing.

 

 

It was demonstrated in the thread back when the Mega Sg landed. Games like Earthworm Jim use vertical alternating bars to create different colors. Look at the tires in the background in the first stage. Look at the different colors across Jim's back in the full-screen Jim portrait/level title card before every level. It's not dithering. They create whole patches of color this way using composite blending.

 

They also use it for transparency effects... the wormhole tube in the EWJ bonus stages ("Andy Asteroids"), the white glare on the tubes in "Down the Tubes" and the other underwater level. The steam/smoke over the lava in the second stage ("What The Heck?!")... which was missing from the PC Special Edition port from Sega CD purely because in looks so bad with RGBS, especially in contrast to the improved 256-color background. Yes, the PC Special Edition of Earthworm Jim used the Sega CD version with some porting middleware called "Exodus" so it was essentially the Sega CD version with some of the effects removed to hide how ugly it is without composite blending.

 

The Genesis appears to have more colors than the hardware allows when you play these games with composite... because it really does.

 

 

 

 

 

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The redesign sounds good for NES gaming, but I suspect will have ramifications for the core store. 

 

I like the Mega Sg's dithering solution. Doesn't work perfectly in every game with significant amounts of dithering, but it does help in a fair number of them like The Lion King.

 

I keep it disabled most of the time since dithering simply isn't a problem for most games, but it's fun to enable it when encountering a more problematic title. I'd say my success rate is about 50% when experimenting with it. For every game where it causes as many problems as it solves (Virtua Racing is a good example), it fixes another one such as The Lion King.

Edited by Atariboy
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I also find it interesting they redid the NES core.  I thought it was already an exact representation of the NES?  Anyway, I wonder if the original Nt or Nt Mini will be updated with this new core? 

 

The fact they mention the DAC works with it makes me think this will end up in an HDMI only model at some point.  Otherwise why even bother spending any time on a feature like that for a system that already outputs analog?  Couldn't you just use a $1 RCA splitter to do the same thing? A lot of PVMs have outputs as well so you wouldn't even need a splitter for those.  I can't see anyone caring about dual analog output.  But I could see it being a huge feature in an HDMI only Nt Mini down the line.

Edited by Toth
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2 hours ago, CZroe said:

That's huge! Kind of upsetting at the same time... only reason I didn't preorder one is because we were told it was the same except for the cartridge slot and I didn't want to spend that much on something without horizontal interpolation for non-integer scaling.

 

That said, this kinda hints that there will be a plastic one, considering that Nt Mini Noir was announced as limited product and I strongly doubt they would do all this for only limited preordered units.

Or all that work could also be for the Pocket. 

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29 minutes ago, Atariboy said:

The redesign sounds good for NES gaming, but I suspect will have ramifications for the core store. 

 

I like the Mega Sg's dithering solution. Doesn't work perfectly in every game with significant amounts of dithering, but it does help in a fair number of them like The Lion King.

 

I keep it disabled most of the time since dithering simply isn't a problem for most games, but it's fun to enable it when encountering a more problematic title. I'd say my success rate is about 50% when experimenting with it. For every game where it causes as many problems as it solves (Virtua Racing is a good example), it fixes another one such as The Lion King.

Actually no,  he's already said he reworked some of the current JB cores and will be adding Intellivision and some other core to Noir.  

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NT Noir will be the best Famicom ever made.  The people upset about the newly announced features are cry babies that should have pre-ordered when they had the chance.  Now they will have to buy it on Ebay.

 

Pro tip for Analogue’s products: always, without exception, pre-order the second they start taking pre-orders.  Otherwise you can spend 4x the original price on Ebay.

Edited by Jagasian
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9 minutes ago, Jagasian said:

NT Noir will be the best Famicom ever made.  The people upset about the newly announced features are cry babies that should have pre-ordered when they had the chance.  Now they will have to buy it on Ebay.

 

Pro tip for Analogue’s products: always, without exception, pre-order the second they start taking pre-orders.  Otherwise you can spend 4x the original price on Ebay.

Nailed It!!!!     

The original NT Mini was announced/released around 3 yrs ago.   It was due for an upgrade.   We live in a world where phones and tablets get upgraded every year, so there is no reason to cry foul when a 3 yr old product gets an upgrade.

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35 minutes ago, Jagasian said:

NT Noir will be the best Famicom ever made.  The people upset about the newly announced features are cry babies that should have pre-ordered when they had the chance.  Now they will have to buy it on Ebay.

 

Pro tip for Analogue’s products: always, without exception, pre-order the second they start taking pre-orders.  Otherwise you can spend 4x the original price on Ebay.

If they've put this much effort into the internals, I'm again optimistic of a plastic Super Nt/Mega Sg style rationalization of it.

 

Some wouldn't be happy if that came to pass, but they're still buying a premium product with a very cool casing, will have capabilities that would likely not be there with a rerelease (Dual analog/HDMI output will be pretty cool for streamers), and the ability to enjoy it for the many months before a potential successor ever comes to market.

 

If it ever does.

Edited by Atariboy
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NT Noir will be the best Famicom ever made.  The people upset about the newly announced features are cry babies that should have pre-ordered when they had the chance.  Now they will have to buy it on Ebay.

Preorder blindly even though every indication was that it was another Nt Mini with a regised cartridge slot?

Pro tip for Analogue’s products: always, without exception, pre-order the second they start taking pre-orders.  Otherwise you can spend 4x the original price on Ebay.

Unlike other preorder campaigns, it was a limited preorder. Preordering something you don't expect to want because they didn't tell you the information that changes your mind about it just because you could make money if they don't surprise you = shameless scalping.

I didn't preorder because they said it was the same except for the revised cart slot and "the same" wasn't good enough for me after I was reminded that there was no horizontal interpolation. Now that there suddenly is, it changes things. Preordering blindly in anticipation of them changing it doesn't sound smart.
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I was hoping/expecting firmware upgrades to fix things (such as the fact that it's been years since I've been able to reliably play my FDS because of the RAM Adapter read issues discussed in this thread) when this final run was announced with the details given. Now, with us being told literally as a huge delay in shipping was announced that the system has been massively improved, I'm left wondering if existing Nt Mini owners are going to get the shaft with some of this. The term "bait and switch" definitely applies right now.

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Nailed It!!!!     

The original NT Mini was announced/released around 3 yrs ago.   It was due for an upgrade.   We live in a world where phones and tablets get upgraded every year, so there is no reason to cry foul when a 3 yr old product gets an upgrade.
I can see Nt Mini owners who had no reason to prorder when they still could being upset that they are learning about the upgrade after the window of opportunity has passed. The way it was done excluded them unless they were so miffed at the flaky connector or wanted black so bad that they'd preorder it anyway for several hundred dollars.

I made the calculated decision to wait for the ~$190 Analogue 8 but I definitely would not have if I knew what we k ow now. ...and it's not just that I didn't know: they out-right said it was the same Nt Mini we already know except for the cartridge slot and color. It's hard to make the right decisions when even the details you think you know are wrong.

I cut them some slack because it's clear to me that even they didn't know they'd be doing it this way at that point. Who knows what snag pushed them in this direction. It's still frustrating though, since I absolutely would have ordered one of I knew it was going to have scaling with horizontal interpolation like Mega Sg/Super Nt. Oh well. I'll just have to wait longer for the plastic HDMI-only version that I suspect will also have fewer controller ports (Analogue 8). At least I'll be paying less.

Here's what I see happening over the next 1.5 to 3 years:
Nt Mini Noir launch
Analogue Pocket preorders open
Analogue DAC Round 2 preorders
Analogue Pocket launches with most/all adapters available
Analogue DAC Round 2 wrap-up
Warranty spare Noirs get sold without controllers
Demand for Analogue's FPGA NES spikes after sell-out
Analogue 8 preorders begin
...
Analogue 8 launches
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If a company provides additional functionality in their product than what they advertised, it is not bait and switch.  Instead, it is called going above and beyond.  People are letting their jealousy get the better of them.

 

Kevtris has spent more of his life reverse engineering the Famicom and NES, than any other console.  Having a single person like him design a new Famicom from scratch is just something you do not pass up if you are a Nintendo fan.

 

My regret is that I only bought one NT Noir.  I bought 2 Super NTs.  One to play, the other to hoard.  I should have done the same with the NT Noir.

Edited by Jagasian
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I'm going to side with the people that feel they got screwed by Analogue. I'm sure someone's going to tell me to go to hell or whatever, but that's fine.

 

They advertised it as something that caused at least some owners of the original thing to feel that it wasn't worth it since it didn't seem to offer much aside from a different/improved NES cart slot and a new UI.

 

Now they said "Oh, by the way, it's just plain better than the old version", which they really should have stated when the thing was actually available for purchase. If anything, not saying as much earlier doesn't make much sense from a business perspective since they probably would have had higher sales if they had.

 

This is assuming that

 

1. The number of systems to be produced depended on the amount of preorders received, essentially making each system built-to-order + warranty systems. This goes back to my original observation from the day that preorders ended that it seems that preorders were open for exactly 1 week, and preorders were closed not because the thing itself sold out but because the allotted time elapsed. Obviously, if they decided from the start to make a set amount of systems and they just conveniently happened to sell out exactly 1 week, almost to the minute, from what I can tell, after opening preorders, this doesn't apply.

 

2. These improvements were not originally part of the plan for whatever reason but later became part of the plan. If this was planned from the beginning, why not announce it at that point and potentially get higher sales numbers, which would mean more revenue, which would mean more profit? This does depend on the above point, though; if there was a set limit to the number to be produced, it wouldn't have changed anything since they still would have sold the same amount.

 

Now that I read this point again, I worded this kind of backwards since I forgot what I originally wanted to write but more or less remembered it later... kind of. You know what I meant with this, right? Yeah, I meant it in that one way that works better than what I wrote, so  just reword this in a way that makes more sense so I don't have to because I'm lazy.

 

Anyway, now I have to figure out some way to connect an Intellivision controller to this thing so I can play Intellivision games with the proper controller since my Japanese TV doesn't seem to like my US Intellivision's RF for whatever reason. I suppose I could get one of those RF to component converter thingies, but if I can use HDMI from the Nt mini and a real controller, I'll definitely use the Nt mini instead, even if I can't use my real carts on it. By the way, Japanese Intellivisions are more expensive than the Nt mini is, so I'd prefer to avoid buying one of those, even if it would work on my TV.

Edited by Steven Pendleton
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On 7/2/2020 at 5:35 AM, vanfanel said:

[..]

Emulation was great, but created a generation of players that have a distorted vision of the past, with horribly-looking pixel-perfect gaming in mind as a reference, when games were not supposed nor designed to look like that in the first place.

No.

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8 minutes ago, atmn said:

Does the Mega Sg + DAC support the 32x officially?

If so, are there any DB15 to Genesis cable guide? I cant find any.

Yes.

 

There is always this thing...

 

https://retro-access.com/collections/analogue/products/analogue-dac-to-32x-cable

 

and from Analogue

 

https://support.analogue.co/hc/en-us/articles/360033732531-Analog-Video-Cables-for-Analogue-DAC

 

although this seems to only have Nt mini, for whatever weird reason.

Edited by Steven Pendleton
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