FPGA Based Videogame System

[cacophony]

Huh, my money was on the retroblox because it claims to be partially fpga based and if it wants to be any good it will need Kev to code for it.

 

That would make zero sense given his prior comment(s) on the retroblox, which was essentially that it was a fundamentally flawed idea and/or misrepresentation.

Edited April 9, 2017 by cacophony

[Wolf_]

 

That would make zero sense given his prior comment(s) on the retroblox.

Well I'm not sure when they hired him. Also I think it is really fast to be making a Analogue NT gen 3. All just speculation though.

[cacophony]

Well I'm not sure when they hired him. Also I think it is really fast to be making a Analogue NT gen 3. All just speculation though.

 

We're not talking about Nt gen 3 here. We're talking about a 16 bit FPGA system, likely targeted at SNES. The Nt gen 1/2 were both 8 bit NES systems.

 

Did you read his comments about the retrobox? Here's the initial one, but there are some others too:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/261689-retroblox/page-15?do=findComment&comment=3692311

 

Why is it surprising that a company starts a new product after being completely finished with their only other product? And given that the development of the FPGA core is the part that takes the longest, wouldn't you want the one and only person doing that work to get started ASAP? If anything, I'm surprised they didn't have him start sooner. But given that Analogue is such a small company and Kevtris is only one person it makes sense.

Edited April 9, 2017 by cacophony

[Wolf_]

 

We're not talking about Nt gen 3 here. We're talking about a 16 bit FPGA system, likely targeted at SNES. The Nt gen 1/2 were both 8 bit NES systems.

 

Did you read his comments about the retrobox? Here's the initial one, but there are some others too:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/261689-retroblox/page-15?do=findComment&comment=3692311

 

Why is it surprising that a company starts a new product after being completely finished with their only other product? And given that the development of the FPGA core is the part that takes the longest, wouldn't you want the one and only person doing that work to get started ASAP? If anything, I'm surprised they didn't have him start sooner. But given that Analogue is such a small company and Kevtris is only one person it makes sense.

A job is a job and the only thing required for someone to take one is that they find they pay tempting. The vast majority of people hate their jobs with a passion and without money no one would just "go to work". And I completely agree what Retroblox is doing with some kind of custom half hybrid system that is going to be entirely up to them to support because it is so unique no one else will probably work with it on the fan side, is dumb. Which is why from their point of view it would be super incredibly smart to hire the one guy that seems to know what the hell he is doing when it comes to fpgas.

 

From Kev's point of view making money is important and it looks like this project is generating enough of it to make him a tempting offer to prevent it from being a hot mess.

[cacophony]

A job is a job and the only thing required for someone to take one is that they find they pay tempting. The vast majority of people hate their jobs with a passion and without money no one would just "go to work". And I completely agree what Retroblox is doing with some kind of custom half hybrid system that is going to be entirely up to them to support because it is so unique no one else will probably work with it on the fan side, is dumb. Which is why from their point of view it would be super incredibly smart to hire the one guy that seems to know what the hell he is doing when it comes to fpgas.

 

From Kev's point of view making money is important and it looks like this project is generating enough of it to make him a tempting offer to prevent it from being a hot mess.

 

I could see theory making sense if it weren't for Analogue, their existing relationship with Kevtris, their obvious next project, and the synergy between that project and Kevtris' other work.

 

But yeah, this is all just speculation

Edited April 9, 2017 by cacophony

[Wolf_]

 

I could see theory making sense if it weren't for Analogue, their existing relationship with Kevtris, their obvious next project, and the synergy between that project and Kevtris' other work.

 

But yeah, this is all just speculation

See I find the Analogue NT Gen 3 unlikely because if it covers 16bit systems that would step on the toes of the Z3k. He wouldn't want to take away his own major selling points. Meanwhile the retroblox is something he could safely work on without cutting into his own sales because it is a different thing entirely that still needs his expertise if it doesn't want to be a dumpster fire.

[Radfoo]

"I am working on new stuff," he said, apologizing for not being able to reveal too many details, "and I think people will be happy with it when it finally gets done."

(https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/kevtris-kevin-horton-cyrogenics-retro-gaming)

I think he previously mentioned it would take about 6 months to do a SNES core, so maybe Analogue is hoping to announce the product around the Aug/Sept time-frame with a Jan 2018 release (similar to timing of Nt Mini)

 

 

I'm guessing he is working on a portable for Analogue (actually briefly showed one a few weeks ago on YouTube)

 

I know Kevin is talented but I imagine if it did take Kevin 6 months to make a SNES core is would not be as polished as the NES one, he worked on that for years then ironed lots of stuff out on the Hi-Def NES.

[cacophony]

See I find the Analogue NT Gen 3 unlikely because if it covers 16bit systems that would step on the toes of the Z3k. He wouldn't want to take away his own major selling points. Meanwhile the retroblox is something he could safely work on without cutting into his own sales because it is a different thing entirely that still needs his expertise if it doesn't want to be a dumpster fire.

 

I think Kevtris has already proven quite extensively that his primary motivation for this work is preservation, not a business opportunity. He released (10?) years of core development for free for a product made by another company!

 

Also, re: the Retrobox, his comments indicate that there's nothing he could do to help even if he wanted to. His expertise is not writing software emulators, and he said their mixed approach would never work.

Edited April 9, 2017 by cacophony

[Wolf_]

 

I'm guessing he is working on a portable for Analogue (actually briefly showed one a few weeks ago on YouTube)

 

I know Kevin is talented but I imagine if it did take Kevin 6 months to make a SNES core is would not be as polished as the NES one, he worked on that for years then ironed lots of stuff out on the Hi-Def NES.

If he is working on a portable that would be awesome! I hope it has hdmi out for those of us that like to play on a big screen while at home. I'm still angry the switch doesn't play ds and 3ds titles (in 2d mode) and that the Ps vita has a port that looks like it was going to be for video out that still hasn't been used.

 

 

I think Kevtris has already proven quite extensively that his primary motivation for this work is preservation, not a business opportunity. He released (10?) years of core development for free for a product made by another company!

 

Also, re: the Retrobox, his comments indicate that there's nothing he could do to help even if he wanted to. His expertise is not writing software emulators.

That is entirely true that he has been very giving with his cores and doesn't seem to be motivated primarily by business opportunities. And while it is true he certainly couldn't save the project by himself he could almost certainly improve whatever they are using fpgas for. Perhaps it has an os but only uses the os to boot the cores like it is loading an alternate os. Or maybe the os is for on screen overlays so you can have images and guides and the fpgas run the cores for the game systems separately underneath it all. In any case I can think of a few ways the retroblox wouldn't be a complete failure and all of them involve Kevtris coding for it.

Edited April 9, 2017 by Wolf_

[cacophony]

 

I'm guessing he is working on a portable for Analogue (actually briefly showed one a few weeks ago on YouTube)

 

I know Kevin is talented but I imagine if it did take Kevin 6 months to make a SNES core is would not be as polished as the NES one, he worked on that for years then ironed lots of stuff out on the Hi-Def NES.

 

I'm not sure I understand the interest in a portable "authentic" NES experience. It's kind of a neat gimmick, but wouldn't the number of interested people be pretty small? And given that RetroUSB is already working on such a device...

 

Also, it doesn't really fit Analogue's product line, which is about zero comprise, sleek design, and highest quality possible. A portable of that nature would be cost prohibitive, and I can't imagine how it could ever look sleek if it requires cartridges.

[Kismet]

A job is a job and the only thing required for someone to take one is that they find they pay tempting. The vast majority of people hate their jobs with a passion and without money no one would just "go to work". And I completely agree what Retroblox is doing with some kind of custom half hybrid system that is going to be entirely up to them to support because it is so unique no one else will probably work with it on the fan side, is dumb. Which is why from their point of view it would be super incredibly smart to hire the one guy that seems to know what the hell he is doing when it comes to fpgas.

 

From Kev's point of view making money is important and it looks like this project is generating enough of it to make him a tempting offer to prevent it from being a hot mess.

"The vast majority..." Uh first no.

 

Most people love their jobs or they would not stick around, some people only stick around because of benefits (eg healthcare), or immigration (green card) requirements that they would otherwise be unable to keep if they voluntarily leave the job. When it comes to freelance contract work, the freelancer can refuse any work that is either too terrible or doesn't pay enough, they are not require to accept poor working conditions. The disadvantage to freelancing is that you're responsible for your own benefits, so don't balk at $100+/hr rates. That's why voice actors for games, and artists for comics and such are so expensive.

 

Someone who actually knows their stuff for electrical engineering, should be paid a small fortune to do the kind of stuff that kevtris has done so far with the NT mini, and he's doing this because he wants to do it. I'm sure if he setup a patreon and had a steering questing (eg "I want to work on, X, Y and Z cores, which one do you want to see first) there would be a fair amount of interest. Even from people who do not have the NT mini currently, because maybe that is just the point at which they would buy in.

[Wolf_]

"The vast majority..." Uh first no.

 

Most people love their jobs or they would not stick around, some people only stick around because of benefits (eg healthcare), or immigration (green card) requirements that they would otherwise be unable to keep if they voluntarily leave the job. When it comes to freelance contract work, the freelancer can refuse any work that is either too terrible or doesn't pay enough, they are not require to accept poor working conditions. The disadvantage to freelancing is that you're responsible for your own benefits, so don't balk at $100+/hr rates. That's why voice actors for games, and artists for comics and such are so expensive.

 

Someone who actually knows their stuff for electrical engineering, should be paid a small fortune to do the kind of stuff that kevtris has done so far with the NT mini, and he's doing this because he wants to do it. I'm sure if he setup a patreon and had a steering questing (eg "I want to work on, X, Y and Z cores, which one do you want to see first) there would be a fair amount of interest. Even from people who do not have the NT mini currently, because maybe that is just the point at which they would buy in.

Uhhh yes. People hate their jobs. And idk why voice actors were brought into this conversation but they get paid like dirt. Even if you get paid $100 per hour it doesn't make much of a difference when the vast majority of characters can have 7 episodes worth of lines read in a half hour. And only the super famous voice actors make a lot of money. The English actor for Spike from Cowboy Bebop (one of the most iconic and amazing voice actors in all of anime) has personally told me that no one really does voice acting for the money, they do it because they love it and have side/main jobs for stable income.

 

This got really off topic but people do what they need to for their income. You gotta eat to live. If someone offers you enough money to get something done you get it done. If you think the vast majority of people love their jobs go work in a couple warehouses, restaurants, service based jobs, ect. Work there for a couple weeks and see what people say. Or just make a strawpoll. No one wants to trade chunks of their life for money but they need to because they'll literally die without it. Do you have any idea how much stuff I could learn and get done if for 10 hours a day I wasn't working and had money? That isn't how the world works. Maybe for Kevtris that is how the world could work because he is a freelancer with amazing skills but he isn't driven by profit and doesn't capitalize off his talents. It is very realistic to believe he would be in a position to take a job for the pay. And he might not even hate the project, he might find the hybrid design to be an interesting challenge.

 

Anyways this is all just conjecture. It isn't like I'm saying this is exactly what is going on, just what I think is likely. If we assume he is working on fpgas and know someone else is paying him to do it that rules out the Z3k and only leaves us with the 2 fpga things we know about right now. It could be something we don't know anything about because they haven't announced anything yet and got in contact with Kevtris privately, or it could be unrelated to fpgas entirely and have something to do with other skills Kevtris has we know nothing about.

Edited April 9, 2017 by Wolf_

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

That brings us to timing. I would seriously be surprised if it comes out this year.Kev has been pretty up front about the effort needed to get the Cores working and I he'd probably want to get the key 16bit cores shaped up first...and based on info gleamed in this thread, they aren't there yet. the Nt is giving us all an opportunity to kick the tires on the work he's done in the last few years, but bringing that effort forward it may take a couple more years to get there.

 

If you are on the fence about the Nt and adore 8bit stuff..I'd say pull the trigger...you'll get at least a couple good, exclusive years out of it...with a lot of new stuff during that time period. if you are more a 16bit guy you might want to wait, but the wait may take awhile (but will almost definitely be worth it).

Honestly I'm just as much a fan of the 16-bit generation as I am the 8-bit generation, so I will wait patiently for something to develop along those fronts. The holy Trinity of TG-16/PCe, Genesis/MD, and SNES really is the shining achievement of the "bit years" before 3D and other stuff took over. I think it would be worth it to wait at this point for the perfection and a real swansong system to retrogamers everywhere. Also it would be nice if some of the golden era arcade classics would be nice to emulate, stuff like Pacman and Donkey Kong, etc. Perhaps the Zimba may be able to accept unzipped MAME ROMs for select titles on the SD card? hint, hint...

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

I'm guessing he is working on a portable for Analogue (actually briefly showed one a few weeks ago on YouTube)

 

I know Kevin is talented but I imagine if it did take Kevin 6 months to make a SNES core is would not be as polished as the NES one, he worked on that for years then ironed lots of stuff out on the Hi-Def NES.

RetroUSB is also working on a portable AVS. Great minds think alike, eh?

 

 

I'm not sure I understand the interest in a portable "authentic" NES experience. It's kind of a neat gimmick, but wouldn't the number of interested people be pretty small? And given that RetroUSB is already working on such a device...

 

Also, it doesn't really fit Analogue's product line, which is about zero comprise, sleek design, and highest quality possible. A portable of that nature would be cost prohibitive, and I can't imagine how it could ever look sleek if it requires cartridges.

Yup.

[cacophony]

Also it would be nice if some of the golden era arcade classics would be nice to emulate, stuff like Pacman and Donkey Kong, etc. Perhaps the Zimba may be able to accept unzipped MAME ROMs for select titles on the SD card? hint, hint...

 

I've been curious about this. How much variety exists in arcade hardware? What's the bang for the buck here in terms of effort? Is there a core that would support 10 different games? 100?

[Keatah]

Not a whole hella lot.

[Andromeda Stardust]

A job is a job and the only thing required for someone to take one is that they find they pay tempting. The vast majority of people hate their jobs with a passion and without money no one would just "go to work". And I completely agree what Retroblox is doing with some kind of custom half hybrid system that is going to be entirely up to them to support because it is so unique no one else will probably work with it on the fan side, is dumb. Which is why from their point of view it would be super incredibly smart to hire the one guy that seems to know what the hell he is doing when it comes to fpgas.

 

From Kev's point of view making money is important and it looks like this project is generating enough of it to make him a tempting offer to prevent it from being a hot mess.

 

 

If he is working on a portable that would be awesome! I hope it has hdmi out for those of us that like to play on a big screen while at home. I'm still angry the switch doesn't play ds and 3ds titles (in 2d mode) and that the Ps vita has a port that looks like it was going to be for video out that still hasn't been used.

 

That is entirely true that he has been very giving with his cores and doesn't seem to be motivated primarily by business opportunities. And while it is true he certainly couldn't save the project by himself he could almost certainly improve whatever they are using fpgas for. Perhaps it has an os but only uses the os to boot the cores like it is loading an alternate os. Or maybe the os is for on screen overlays so you can have images and guides and the fpgas run the cores for the game systems separately underneath it all. In any case I can think of a few ways the retroblox wouldn't be a complete failure and all of them involve Kevtris coding for it.

 

 

 

This got really off topic but people do what they need to for their income. You gotta eat to live. If someone offers you enough money to get something done you get it done. If you think the vast majority of people love their jobs go work in a couple warehouses, restaurants, service based jobs, ect. Work there for a couple weeks and see what people say. Or just make a strawpoll. No one wants to trade chunks of their life for money but they need to because they'll literally die without it. Do you have any idea how much stuff I could learn and get done if for 10 hours a day I wasn't working and had money? That isn't how the world works. Maybe for Kevtris that is how the world could work because he is a freelancer with amazing skills but he isn't driven by profit and doesn't capitalize off his talents. It is very realistic to believe he would be in a position to take a job for the pay. And he might not even hate the project, he might find the hybrid design to be an interesting challenge.

 

Anyways this is all just conjecture. It isn't like I'm saying this is exactly what is going on, just what I think is likely. If we assume he is working on fpgas and know someone else is paying him to do it that rules out the Z3k and only leaves us with the 2 fpga things we know about right now. It could be something we don't know anything about because they haven't announced anything yet and got in contact with Kevtris privately, or it could be unrelated to fpgas entirely and have something to do with other skills Kevtris has we know nothing about.

 

Wolf, where are you getting the assumption that Kevtris is somehow working with Retroblox after he made it very clear their "hybrid emulation" approach has slim if any chances of being successful?

 

Yes, Kevtris has a day job, and no, he isn't disclosing this work. Either he's under an NDA or just doesn't want to mix business and hobby, which is a wise move IMO. And whether he enjoys this job is irrelevant and not up for debate. You seem convinced that Kevtris is the only person on Earth who can save Retroblox. My question to you is, why should anybody care, much less Kevtris himself, if Retroblox sink or swim? I think after the Chameleon scandal, Kevtris would want to distance himself from would be hardware developers, or "idea men" with no proven track record or skills to execute them. The Analogue partnership really is a match made in heaven IMO, with Kevtris helping to design their console, then them being totally cool with it when he blew the lid off with his jailbreak firmware.

[genfuyung]

How do I change which bios a core uses? Everything was fine until I added addition bioses in the smoke monster pack and now the tails adventure game gear conversion for the master system wont work. Also, the start button on the nes controller doesnt seem to work on any of the conversions Ive tried, so the games cant be started.

Edited April 9, 2017 by genfuyung

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

I've been curious about this. How much variety exists in arcade hardware? What's the bang for the buck here in terms of effort? Is there a core that would support 10 different games? 100?

Well much of classic arcade hardware, even if every game was unique, share lots of off the shelf parts such as CPUs, I/O logic, sound chips, and the like. MAME works by emulating every "chip" and then mapping the hardware together, which is unique for every game.

 

I think this would be doable to have an FPGA implementation of MAME for certain games, by designing each "block" comprised of the chips the motherboard uses. All that's really left is the interconnects, which would be super easy to do at this point. The MAME ROMs for supported games could be stored unzipped in the SD card folder, using the "extract to" command, which creates a folder with the proper file name, and associated files within that folder.

 

Compiling the FPGA core for each unique hardware configuration would be easy to do once you've assembled all the building blocks. It would be a bit more work than a software emulation of MAME, but considering there are thousands of games, most of which are junk, cores for a few of the more popular golden era arcade titles would be a welcome addition, after most core work has been finished for most consoles and vintage computers.

 

The downside of this arrangement is you have to reflash the FPGA for every game you want to play, as opposed to every console. A single MAME core would never work, or would be more massive than any FPGA on the planet, but I think popular games would be nice. Perhaps Kevtris could field arcade games to decide which are doable and then do polls to see which ones get ported first.

[Wolf_]

Wolf, where are you getting the assumption that Kevtris is somehow working with Retroblox after he made it very clear their "hybrid emulation" approach has slim if any chances of being successful?

 

Yes, Kevtris has a day job, and no, he isn't disclosing this work. Either he's under an NDA or just doesn't want to mix business and hobby. You seem convinced that Kevtris is the only person on Earth who can save Retroblox. My question to you is, why should anybody care, much less Kevtris himself, if Retroblox sink or swim? I think after the Chameleon scandal, Kevtris would want to distance himself from would be developers, or "idea men" with no proven track record or skills to execute them. The Analogue partnership really is a match made in heaven IMO, with Kevtris helping to design their console then being cool with it when he blew the lid off.

I got the assumption that Kevtris might be working with Retroblox because it is the most logical approach I could think of. As stated off the top of my head there were a few thoughts:

1) He's being paid so it isn't the Z3k as he wouldn't be paying himself.

2) I only know of one other fpga system in the works right now so assuming he is working on fpga coding that would be the retroblox.

3) I was later told about the possibility of a Analogue NT gen 3 but that would basically be a Z3k so I don't think he would do that if he wanted his own system to sell.

4) I was later told about about a Analogue handheld which has some evidence behind the fact that it exists. Evidently a youtube video or something somewhere. That seems most likely assuming those claims were true.

5) The possibility still exists it could be an unheard of fpga system that reached out to Kev or the work isn't even related to fpgas.

6) It wouldn't be a scandal if the product actually works as advertised or at the very least the work he did on it performs as he claims it work. It also wouldn't be a scandal even if it did turn out to be a scam and his name wasn't attached to the project anywhere so no one could blame him for the mistakes of the company.

7) I never said Kevtris "cared" about the Retroblox simply they might be his employers and that would be a good thing because their project has the money to hire him and he is a talented programmer which would make me feel better about the system not being complete crap.

Given that Kevtris is only working on the system for a week or two that makes it seem likely what he is being paid to do is relatively small. For example getting the Nes working as a handheld or some internal tweaks to the Retroblox system for whatever they have their fpga doing. For example the Analogue NT gen 3 would be months of work followed by tons of updates and the NT mini hasn't even had all the cores it can support developed yet.

 

How do I change which bios a core uses? Everything was fine until I added addition bioses in the smoke monster pack and now some master system games wont work.

Just replace the bios file in the bios folder with a properly named bios for the system.

Also if you can you let me know which games don't work and where you got a bios that works with them that would be helpful so I could test it.

[cacophony]

4) I was later told about about a Analogue handheld which has some evidence behind the fact that it exists. Evidently a youtube video or something somewhere. That seems most likely assuming those claims were true.

 

Let's not spread false rumors

 

The quote was: "I'm guessing he is working on a portable for Analogue (actually briefly showed one a few weeks ago on YouTube)"

 

I'm not sure what video clip that was talking about about it almost certainly didn't mention any connection to Analogue.

[cacophony]

 

I'm guessing he is working on a portable for Analogue (actually briefly showed one a few weeks ago on YouTube)

 

Care to share the video you're referring to? if it's the one I'm thinking of I wouldn't read much into it...

Edited April 9, 2017 by cacophony

[Wolf_]

 

Let's not spread false rumors

 

The quote was: "I'm guessing he is working on a portable for Analogue (actually briefly showed one a few weeks ago on YouTube)"

 

I'm not sure what video clip that was talking about about it almost certainly didn't mention any connection to Analogue.

I thought I worded that to say it was unconfirmed in as many ways as possible lol

[Radfoo]

 

I'm not sure I understand the interest in a portable "authentic" NES experience. It's kind of a neat gimmick, but wouldn't the number of interested people be pretty small? And given that RetroUSB is already working on such a device...

 

Also, it doesn't really fit Analogue's product line, which is about zero comprise, sleek design, and highest quality possible. A portable of that nature would be cost prohibitive, and I can't imagine how it could ever look sleek if it requires cartridges.

Yeah, maybe you are right, was just a guess. Could be something to do with cryogenics for all I know!

 

Edit - Think this was the video I was refering to -

, video shows some of the things he has been working on. I guess his paid work would not be in this video. Edited April 9, 2017 by Radfoo

[Keatah]

Cryogenic superconducting FPGAs.