FPGA Based Videogame System

[RabidWookie]

If the 32x could put a nail in the coffin of a company like Sega I think Analogue should learn from history and not release it as an addon.

 

Analogue brands itself as the company that makes reference quality, no-compromises hardware for exploring eras of gaming (and so far they've lived up to that). An Analogue Genesis that has no way to play Sega CD or 32X games would be an abject failure of their mission statement.

[Shadowgate]

If you use your own usb cable, make sure it is a good one. Cheaper cables won't have big enough wire on the power, and it will cause excessive voltage drop. One of the crappy cables I used originally during testing had over 1V of drop at 500ma.

Thank you for the advice. I'm using the 10" braided micro usb cable that is packed in with the Xbox Elite controllers. They are braided and a personal favorite for wired controllers. They only run about $7 off eBay so I can highly recommend them to anyone looking for a high quality solution.

[cfillak]

Analogue brands itself as the company that makes reference quality, no-compromises hardware for exploring eras of gaming (and so far they've lived up to that). An Analogue Genesis that has no way to play Sega CD or 32X games would be an abject failure of their mission statement.

Hey man, they've already failed at that with the Super NT, I mean you can't even plug the Extertainment exercise bike into it! (No expansion port) I kid I kid.

[Wolf_]

Analogue brands itself as the company that makes reference quality, no-compromises hardware for exploring eras of gaming (and so far they've lived up to that). An Analogue Genesis that has no way to play Sega CD or 32X games would be an abject failure of their mission statement.

I'm sure if they make a standalone Genesis or a Genesis core for the Super NT and an adapter for the cartridge port then you could plug a 32x into it and that aspect would work but interfacing the video would be tricky because you would have to use the dac to convert it to rgb and then have a cable that goes from the dac to the input on the 32x and then it would probably work.

 

I was talking strictly about a fpga adaptation of the 32x though which absolutely should not be an addon.

[RabidWookie]

I'm sure if they make a standalone Genesis or a Genesis core for the Super NT and an adapter for the cartridge port then you could plug a 32x into it and that aspect would work but interfacing the video would be tricky because you would have to use the dac to convert it to rgb and then have a cable that goes from the dac to the input on the 32x and then it would probably work.

 

The 32x outputs the final video output so that wouldn't work for hdmi, and if it's only going to be used for CRT gaming then no reason not to just use a $20 original Genesis off Craigslist instead. Edited February 9, 2018 by RabidWookie

[Wolf_]

The 32x outputs the final video output so that wouldn't work for hdmi, and if it's only going to be used for CRT gaming then no reason not to just use a $20 original Genesis off Craigslist instead.

I never said it would work with hdmi, just that it (the console) would work with the 32x. Obviously in rgb. And the point would obviously be that it can play your Genesis game much better and still play the 6 32x games people enjoy. Also perhaps the jailbroken firmware could still play 32x roms with the 32x attached, I'm unsure if game data could be sent from the console to the 32x for processing or not though.

[RabidWookie]

I never said it would work with hdmi, just that it (the console) would work with the 32x. Obviously in rgb.

Which is irrelevant to the discussion of an fpga Genesis that can play Sega CD and 32x games on modern TVs.

[Wolf_]

Which is irrelevant to the discussion of an fpga Genesis that can play Sega CD and 32x games on modern TVs.

I was only talking about if it could play it. There are obviously other benefits to using fpga technology besides hdmi so it is far from irrelevant.

[RabidWookie]

I was only talking about if it could play it. There are obviously other benefits to using fpga technology besides hdmi so it is far from irrelevant.

To a discussion about playing those games on modern TVs via fpga consoles? You might want to look up what irrelevant means.

[Wolf_]

To a discussion about playing those games on modern TVs via fpga consoles? You might want to look up what irrelevant means.

This is a discussion about playing them via fpga. There was no mention of hdmi only until your last post.

[Daschewie]

Analogue brands itself as the company that makes reference quality, no-compromises hardware for exploring eras of gaming (and so far they've lived up to that). An Analogue Genesis that has no way to play Sega CD or 32X games would be an abject failure of their mission statement.

 

The 32x has two 23Mhz Hitachi SH2 32-bit processors and VDP used in conjunction with the Genesis 68000 processor and VDP. While the graphics are not impressive due to the small cartridges sizes, the system is several times more powerful than a NEO GEO. I think it would require a more expensive FPGA.

[keepdreamin]

All this talk of 32X, what games are you folks actually going to play on that? I think this desire would be simply to say, "yeah, it can play 32X games". You're really going to invest serious time into Kolibri or Metal Head? I don't buy that.

[scott64]

Hey man, they've already failed at that with the Super NT, I mean you can't even plug the Extertainment exercise bike into it! (No expansion port) I kid I kid.

On a serious note though, consider that the playstation's serial port never had any official addons, but more recently a flash cart was developed that utilized it. Not including that SNES expansion port has kinda got me wondering what we could be missing out on in the future.

[Shadowgate]

All this talk of 32X, what games are you folks actually going to play on that? I think this desire would be simply to say, "yeah, it can play 32X games". You're really going to invest serious time into Kolibri or Metal Head? I don't buy that.

 

It's amazing how much people talk about the 32X these days considering how few decent games are on it. The hardware itself is more popular than any game released on it and I think people just like the idea of the 32x and the spectacle it offers by latching on to the Genesis. You may as well be asking for an FPGA verison of the SuperGrafx. Neat but not a lot of practical value

[SegaSnatcher]

This was hilarious. A review of Super NT reviews. (Skip to 1:42)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n28LUC91QLo

Edited February 9, 2018 by SegaSnatcher

[Wolf_]

 

It's amazing how much people talk about the 32X these days considering how few decent games are on it. The hardware itself is more popular than any game released on it and I think people just like the idea of the 32x and the spectacle it offers by latching on to the Genesis. You may as well be asking for an FPGA verison of the SuperGrafx. Neat but not a lot of practical value

Well if the Super Grafx fpga has an expansion port it would be the best way to use the Super SD System 3 as it could play the exclusive games.

[Shadowgate]

Well if the Super Grafx fpga has an expansion port it would be the best way to use the Super SD System 3 as it could play the exclusive games.

 

What kind of monster would make an FPGA console of the Supergrafx and leave out the CD attachment?!

 

I'd love a PC Engine core but I can't see that system being popular enough for a stand alone console. Who knows though. 10 years ago I would never have thought retro gaming would be where it is today. If we are dreaming here I would love a PC-FX FPGA. The barrier for entry on that system is insane

[keepdreamin]

The hardware itself is more popular than any game released on it and I think people just like the idea of the 32x and the spectacle it offers by latching on to the Genesis.

 

Winner winner chicken dinner! Having that thing disappear into FPGA form would completely kill any sort of novelty it held. You'd simply be left with the ability to play a small library of games, that you don't really want to play.

[Newsdee]

I am probably a huge outlier here, but I would love to see the Macintosh Plus come back. I always loved playing Dungeon of Doom. I have an emulator for it, but the sound is actually all messed up and the game plays too fast. An FPGA Mac Plus. Very small market, but I'd be down!

The MiST (and MiSTer) have a Mac Plus core already. It supports 4MB of RAM and writable HDDs:

https://youtu.be/R88x8Ls-ENA

Edited February 9, 2018 by Newsdee

[Newsdee]

Nice! I actually like that idea a lot: A plug-and-play FPGA box with HDMI out, to which you could connect some basic USB devices, mainly a generic keyboard, mouse, joystick, maybe a printer, and this little box could be configured to become a TRS-80, Coco-2, VIC-20, Commodore 64, Apple IIe, Atari 8-bit computer (XL, XE, etc.), ADAM computer, MSX, Amiga, early Macintosh or perhaps even an early PC just powerful enough to run Doom relatively smoothly.

 

That's pretty much what you get with the MiSTer:

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki

 

MiST has most of the cores above except PC, and it has no HDMI, but it comes already in a nice box.

 

They are both open source and are (slowly) getting better. Check out the list of cores on the wiki link above.

Edited February 9, 2018 by Newsdee

[SegaSnatcher]

So, with this new interpolation feature I can basically scale the image however I want without worry about shimmering? I don't mind a very slight softer look if it means I can get closer to true aspect ratio I see from a CRT.

[SegaSnatcher]

All this talk of 32X, what games are you folks actually going to play on that? I think this desire would be simply to say, "yeah, it can play 32X games". You're really going to invest serious time into Kolibri or Metal Head? I don't buy that.

32x has the best port of Virtua Racing. Virtua Fighter is actually quite decent as well.

[snatcher1996]

All this talk of 32X, what games are you folks actually going to play on that? I think this desire would be simply to say, "yeah, it can play 32X games". You're really going to invest serious time into Kolibri or Metal Head? I don't buy that.

 

Yes, those are exceptional games that I spent a lot of time playing in the past.

 

I highly recommend these and the others mentioned in a post before to everyone else here.

[snatcher1996]

 

It's amazing how much people talk about the 32X these days considering how few decent games are on it. The hardware itself is more popular than any game released on it and I think people just like the idea of the 32x and the spectacle it offers by latching on to the Genesis. You may as well be asking for an FPGA verison of the SuperGrafx. Neat but not a lot of practical value

 

 

 

Winner winner chicken dinner! Having that thing disappear into FPGA form would completely kill any sort of novelty it held. You'd simply be left with the ability to play a small library of games, that you don't really want to play.

 

You guys clearly never played any of those games of which some are actually quite unique.

[keepdreamin]

 

 

 

You guys clearly never played any of those games of which some are actually quite unique.

 

Unique is a curious word to use. The game.com could be called unique. The hyperscan is "unique".

 

I walked into a mom & pop game store back in 1995 and they had Metal Head setup for demo. I was immediately turned off by the chunky framerate and boring gameplay. I walked over to the regular genesis games and picked out something. People have the tendency to look back on the past with rose-tinted glasses. The 32X is a perfect example of that. We wanted the PSX and Saturn, not that hot garbage. Those "unique" games were quickly discounted and moved out of retailer stock as the hardware went belly up. This reverence for the 32X now is going to be looked at with a raised eyebrow by folks who actually remember the experience at the time.

 

Any Sonic game on the Genesis is better than Knuckles Chaotix.

 

Saturn got better Virtua Fighters.

 

In the pantheon of Sega racers to choose from, Virtua Racing is certainly not at the top of the list.