FPGA Based Videogame System

[Reaperman]

On 12/18/2021 at 3:37 PM, Reaperman said:

My plan for the screen protector was to run the shower to knock dust out of the bathroom and install it there. It's an old GP2x-era trick, and it worked out pretty well for that one. 

This is not a wise trick for screen protector application in this case.  In other news, LOOOOOOOOL, just no:

Shipping for my entire first order was $18, which included a system, dock, case, screen protector, a/c adapter, 3 cables, and gg adapter.

Edited December 21, 2021 by Reaperman

[Great Hierophant]

16 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

Interesting! This one was on the Everdrive. I have a real cartridge on layaway but won’t have it paid off until the new year

 

The Codemasters games all seem to work from Everdrive except Excellent Dizzy Collection, which has never worked on Everdrive for me.

Ernie Els Golf is another Codemasters game which also does not work on an EverDrive GG X7.  The rest are OK.

[jamon1567]

1 hour ago, Reaperman said:

This is not a wise trick for screen protector application in this case.  In other news, LOOOOOOOOL, just no:

Shipping for my entire first order was $18, which included a system, dock, case, screen protector, a/c adapter, 3 cables, and gg adapter.

Well, that and the fact that it wont arrive until 2023...thats a hard pass lol

[Steven Pendleton]

21 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

I don't think Kev is in charge of the Analogue OS anyway, just the GBA core.

Isn't he the main dude that is in charge of stuff over there? If so, there's not much stopping him from going to his subordinates who are responsible for it or whatever and telling them to make it happen if possible.

[cacophony]

On 12/20/2021 at 11:48 AM, Ricdeau said:

Got my email for what preorder group I'm in. I am in group B (Q4 2022). For reference I ordered within 5 minutes of the store coming up for preorders so group A must have been small.

Based on order number reports on discord (order numbers are consecutive), it appears Group A was approximately 5000 orders. I guess some of those might have been for 2 pockets, so maybe 6000 pockets in Group A? In terms of timing, I think the cutoff for actually getting through checkout was about 3 minutes, which was tough because of forced waiting in the queue.

[Ricdeau]

8 hours ago, cacophony said:

Based on order number reports on discord (order numbers are consecutive), it appears Group A was approximately 5000 orders. I guess some of those might have been for 2 pockets, so maybe 6000 pockets in Group A? In terms of timing, I think the cutoff for actually getting through checkout was about 3 minutes, which was tough because of forced waiting in the queue.

That's the same line of thinking I was having. I was in queue to check out within a minute with a queue time of about 3 minutes, but then at checkout I decided to drop an item out of my cart which forced me to go back and delayed my checkout by a couple more minutes. Thankfully I didn't have to wait in queue a second time.

 

Here's to hoping the supply chain improves next year and groups B and C don't have to wait as long. Long shot, I know, but it would be nice.

Edited December 22, 2021 by Ricdeau

[Toth]

22 hours ago, Reaperman said:

This is not a wise trick for screen protector application in this case.  In other news, LOOOOOOOOL, just no:

Shipping for my entire first order was $18, which included a system, dock, case, screen protector, a/c adapter, 3 cables, and gg adapter.

Ugh, tell me about it.  I forgot to buy the clear case protector back in my 2020 order.  Now, I wouldn't get it until 2023 even without buying a Pocket and would pay that much in shipping.

 

I used the shower dust trick to install my Nintendo Switch screen protector and it worked great.  Get the room nice and steamy and apply.  No bubbles or dust. 

Edited December 22, 2021 by Toth

[Toth]

Do you think they would change the Pocket like they did with the Noir?  Remember how Analogue made it seem like it would be the same Nt Mini (one final run) but it ended up having some improvements that were announced after they sold out.

Edited December 22, 2021 by Toth

[Atariboy]

53 minutes ago, Toth said:

Ugh, tell me about it.  I forgot to buy the clear case protector back in my 2020 order.  Now, I wouldn't get it until 2023 even without buying a Pocket and would pay that much in shipping.

There's obviously no guarantees and one shouldn't order based on what I'm about to say, but one would hope that 2023 for the ETA on some of these basic accessories is just a worst case scenario with the real potential of arriving at some point next year. 

 

Nobody is going to complain if something arrives early, but they'll cry long and hard if it's late. So the 2023 ETA in these crazy times that seems almost nonsensical for simple things like cases and screen protectors is hopefully just to protect their butt if the worst happens with their supply chain, rather than actually representing when they really think they'll be able to ship them out. 

 

That said, I think everyone should take their ETA at face value and assume it's correct. Only buy if you're prepared to wait until potentially December 2023.

Edited December 22, 2021 by Atariboy

[Reaperman]

3 hours ago, Toth said:

I used the shower dust trick to install my Nintendo Switch screen protector and it worked great.  Get the room nice and steamy and apply.  No bubbles or dust. 

in this case it trapped a lot of moisture in an annoying way. I think the thickness of glass on the pocket added more thermal mass than is typical, which caused condensation--and it may have still been somewhat chilled from being outside which would have compounded the condensation issue.  Anyway, I messed it up, but I'll probably add another protector to a future 'backup pocket' order.  Not in this round, but if history is an indication, there may be special edition consoles in the future. 

 

In any case, I'm about 4hrs into Dragon Warrior Monsters 2. It's not as good as I remember the first one, but it's new to me.

I can't think of any time I've been this 'into' GBC including back when it was current.

That GBC screen simulation mode nails the look while also being bigger, and better. And those stereo speakers get nice and loud.

I love the thing, but I wouldn't be me if I didn't pick at it:

 

For other cons:

• I don't care for the d-pad's low amount of rocking motion,
• the sleep function has already let me down at least once,
• that clear hardcase can be closed in a very wrong way,
• the dock is compatible with a whopping one of my big stack of 8bitdo controllers. (at least it's the one I most wanted to use, the arcade stick)

Edited December 22, 2021 by Reaperman

[+jgkspsx]

I have to say, the d pad is a serious problem. It feels bad, and, worse, it inputs stray diagonals on the regular. Hopefully you later adopters will get a better design. It’s worth the flaws for the overall experience, but I hope they make an update kit…

[roots.genoa]

Really? I didn't play very much but haven't noticed anything about the controls yet.

[Steven Pendleton]

5 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

I have to say, the d pad is a serious problem. It feels bad, and, worse, it inputs stray diagonals on the regular. Hopefully you later adopters will get a better design. It’s worth the flaws for the overall experience, but I hope they make an update kit…

Yes, it's very bad. I have been considering contacting customer support to see what they say about this. I wonder if it's like the 8BitDo controllers and the Switch Pro Controller, where people found that you can put some tape or stickers on the PCB to prevent unintentional diagonal inputs.

Edited December 23, 2021 by Steven Pendleton

[Reaperman]

This was a nice little teardown video. It's pretty interesting how it comes apart, and those rubber pads look familiar, so I wonder if they're compatible with rubber 'rebuild kits' for standard controllers--though I suppose all rubber pads look pretty similar  

 

 

[seastalker]

I got my order in the moment the page went up. Not being a bot, I still did my best to copy/paste my shipping and payment info to shave moments off my timing from my failed order attempt years ago. I got the 3 minute wait thing too and am also in Q4 2022. It is indeed frustrating. I'm sure I will enjoy it though I don't expect developers to make much headway this year on adding 3rd party cores if it is this hard to get one in our hands.

 

Speaking of Kevtris cores, I missed out on the NT Mini Noir, which had the cool oddball jailbreak ones mentioned in the OP of this thread.  With the Pocket's ability to be handheld or docked, plus be compatible with a host of controllers (in future firmware), it seems to me the Pocket is the perfect Zimba 3000 opportunity Kevtris envisioned. Especially with the handheld controls not being too far off from a NES 8-bitDo controller, let's hope it gets his NT Mini cores. Please please please!!   

 

I'm surprised that essentially the entire Mega SG is now baked into the NT jailbreak (sans CD/32x HARDWARE support). If you can pair a Genesis 8bitDo to the NES wireless adapter of theirs, maybe they 'gave away the farm' so to speak? I'm happy for NT Mini owners that they did; I just wasn't expecting it. The Pocket is advertised to have future TG16/PCE/SGX support, but is their any speculation-only wonder about CD game support? On one hand, it would be kind of 'giving away' the upcoming Duo, yet they did it with the MegaSG... yet the Noir didn't get the SNES/SFC cores (yet?). Then there is the Sega Nomad elephant in the room question... 

[Atariboy]

I'm hoping when and if the jailbreak happens that we'll be able to play TG16/PC Engine disc images. But as you're essentially saying, we'll just have to wait and see since some of these decisions have been pretty unpredictable like the Nt Mini getting a Genesis core.

We're already in uncharted territory being well past a week after launch and no jailbreak, which breaks from tradition. So even that is no guarantee anymore (Although I'm hoping it's still coming such as after their big January update that's been promised). 

 

But happily the open nature of this should mean that many of our wishes don't necessarily have to be fulfilled by Analogue themselves. We may not have support for TG16/PC Engine disc images for instance, but give the community time and I bet we'll see a quality 3rd party core that's capable of that. 

 

Even the ability to load roms directly off the system itself for GB/GBC/GBA will happen in time if the jailbreak fails to materialize, albeit by way of an alternate 3rd party core.

Edited December 23, 2021 by Atariboy

[Reaperman]

I did quite a lot of controller testing w/ dock FW 1.0.  I found a few that worked (and a lot that didn't).

Anyway, the ones that worked are on the thumbnail.

In the vid, I tried other 8bitdos, retroUSB adapters, a Daemonbite, etc.

 

Also I think I detect lag with the officially-supported 8bitdo arcade controller(?)--maybe it's just my imagination, or the extra throw from the lever, but I doubt it's the lever, since I usually use arcade controllers, and this is the first I've suspected lag with that unit.

 

One of the adapters I used put my controller into 2p mode, meaning there is multi-controller support, and add to that the mysteriously high number of face buttons on the unit itself, and I suspect we have some surprises in the future.

 

 

Edited December 24, 2021 by Reaperman

[Pixelboy]

I have a good ol' Logitech Precision gamepad plugged into my PC right now, and I like it quite a lot for playing old games via emulators. I have to wonder how well it would function on the Pocket Dock. 

 

[Steven Pendleton]

On 12/24/2021 at 7:31 AM, Atariboy said:

Even the ability to load roms directly off the system itself for GB/GBC/GBA will happen in time if the jailbreak fails to materialize, albeit by way of an alternate 3rd party core.

It already happened a few days after launch, although on a per-game basis instead of everything. There are patches for a few games. Pokemon, Tetris, Zelda, and I think maybe some other things. I believe the clock in Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal does not work since there is no hardware to keep track of the time in this case, but other than that, I think most everything probably works perfectly. I have not tried any of them yet since I use the Everdrives, but the option is there for those few games. I'm sure more will be added to the list eventually.

[Atariboy]

Are you talking about something like the suspend feature or beta save state support?

 

Not aware of any current ability to place roms on the Pocket's SD card and then load one, sans cartridge inserted. 

[RobDangerous]

The patched games load via the GB Studio feature.

[+jgkspsx]

So there were reports of Game Gear label damage. I thought I was spared, but sure enough… (down in the bottom right corner)

 

 

I think I am going to sand down the excessively sharp lip. Thinking about removing the lip down to below the label area.

[Toth]

I figured the plastic of the Game Gear cart around the label was above the level of the label or would protect the label somewhat.  It looks like the label is in an indented part of the cartridge.  I suppose if a label is already peeling or loose it will catch on the adapter much easier though.  All I have is an Everdrive when it comes to Game Gear games and have only used it to verify the adapter worked..

Edited December 28, 2021 by Toth

[Steven Pendleton]

If anyone tries the Pocket Metroid II patch that was released a few hours ago, let me know. It always crashes instantly when I enter the final boss room, although I suppose it's also the only boss room, as the game only has 1 boss.

Edited December 29, 2021 by Steven Pendleton

[Chindabin]

On 12/28/2021 at 10:37 PM, Steven Pendleton said:

If anyone tries the Pocket Metroid II patch that was released a few hours ago, let me know. It always crashes instantly when I enter the final boss room, although I suppose it's also the only boss room, as the game only has 1 boss.

Looks like the ips patch by BestPig was updated a few days ago to fix crashing issues. I've also had kirby and ninja gaiden crash during the ending cutscenes (both fixed now). These guys are doing their best I'm sure and I'm super appreciative of these patches. Jailbreak can't come soon enough though haha.