FPGA Based Videogame System

[RabidWookie]

Name me your top 10.

1. Virtua Fighter

2. Virtua Racing

3. Space Harrier

4. Afterburner

5. Kolibri

6. Blackthorne

7. Tempo

8. Star Wars Arcade

9. Knuckles Chaotix

10. Shadow Squadron

 

I hope your reply isn't going to be "There are similar games that are subjectively superior on later systems", because by that logic there's no reason for 99.9% of retro gaming in the first place. Experiencing great old games on their own merits is worthwhile.

[HDTV1080P]

This thread has a massive amount of posts every day. This Zimba 3000 or Analogue NT mini once it is released sounds like a real bargain at $200+ since it works with many 8 bit and 16 bit videogame and computer systems.

 

However I have a few questions before I decide to purchase this

 

(One) I see this product supports ColecoVision rom images, however I am interested in a system that also supports the Coleco ADAM computer. The Coleco ADAM computer has some better quality games when compared to the ColecoVison. Is there any plans to add support for the Coleco ADAM computer?

 

(two) Is this Zimba 3000 (or Analogue NT mini) open source so that a programmer can design their own core? Like anyone being able to add support for the Coleco ADAM computer and other systems on the market?

 

(three) It would be ideal if one could add an external USB 3.0 BD-ROM drive to this product to play actual CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, and BD-ROM games from the various different videogame systems.

 

(Four) What website does one go to purchase this product?

Edited March 8, 2018 by HDTV1080P

[SegaSnatcher]

This thread has a massive amount of posts every day. This Zimba 3000 or Analogue NT mini once it is released sounds like a real bargain at $200+ since it works with many 8 bit and 16 bit videogame and computer systems.

 

However I have a few questions before I decide to purchase this

 

(One) I see this product supports ColecoVision rom images, however I am interested in a system that also supports the Coleco ADAM computer. The Coleco ADAM computer has some better quality games when compared to the ColecoVison. Is there any plans to add support for the Coleco ADAM computer?

 

(two) Is this Zimba 3000 (or Analogue NT mini) open source so that a programmer can design their own core? Like anyone being able to add support for the Coleco ADAM computer and other systems on the market?

 

(three) It would be ideal if one could add an external USB 3.0 BD-ROM drive to this product to play actual CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, and BD-ROM games from the various different videogame systems.

 

(Four) What website does one go to purchase this product?

1.Zimba 3000 most likely isn't happening and the Analogue Nt Mini has already been released, just currently out of stock.

 

2. No, its not open source.

 

3. CD compatibility was never planned.

 

4. Analogue.co

[SegaSnatcher]

1. Virtua Fighter

2. Virtua Racing

3. Space Harrier

4. Afterburner

5. Kolibri

6. Blackthorne

7. Tempo

8. Star Wars Arcade

9. Knuckles Chaotix

10. Shadow Squadron

 

I hope your reply isn't going to be "There are similar games that are subjectively superior on later systems", because by that logic there's no reason for 99.9% of retro gaming in the first place. Experiencing great old games on their own merits is worthwhile.

And you think its worth it for Analogue to add the necessary components in order to play 15 possibly worthwhile games, even if that means form factor and price might be compromised?

[RabidWookie]

And you think its worth it for Analogue to add the necessary components in order to play 15 possibly worthwhile games, even if that means form factor and price might be compromised?

If their tagline is still the best possible experience with no compromises, yes. If price and form factor were worth compromising for Analogue should just release an emulator box and call it a day. Sega CD and 32X were a part of the Genesis era and have games worth playing. I'd be fine with buying FPGA add-ons for an FPGA Genesis, but ignoring them completely is violating Analogue's mission statement.

[SegaSnatcher]

If their tagline is still the best possible experience with no compromises, yes. If price and form factor were worth compromising for Analogue should just release an emulator box and call it a day. Sega CD and 32X were a part of the Genesis era and have games worth playing. I'd be fine with buying FPGA add-ons for an FPGA Genesis, but ignoring them completely is violating Analogue's mission statement.

The $189.99 price point for the Super NT set a new standard for Analogue. I think many would be dissapointed if a Mega NT ended up costing more than the Super NT.

[RabidWookie]

The $189.99 price point for the Super NT set a new standard for Analogue. I think many would be dissapointed if a Mega NT ended up costing more than the Super NT.

Not if it did more than the Super NT does. $190 was the SNES launch price, which is a reason it was chosen. Analogue still isn't in the market of compromising the experience of using their products for price reasons. All they've done is stopped using extraneous case materials and moved analog CRT support to a separate purchase.

[bozo55]

Not if it did more than the Super NT does. $190 was the SNES launch price, which is a reason it was chosen. Analogue still isn't in the market of compromising the experience of using their products for price reasons. All they've done is stopped using extraneous case materials and moved analog CRT support to a separate purchase.

 

190 was the price chosen because any more expensive and it would have been as niche as the nt mini.

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

Analogue will likely not produce a PSX or a SegaCD unit precisely because "accuracy" requires the bios. The only legal BIOS's you can acquire presently are for the 80x86 platform. The BIOS for the C64, Amiga, AtariST, Apple II, Mac, PSX, GameCube, PS2/PS3/PS4/etc, Xbox/Xbox360/XboxOne, GB/GBC/GBA/DS/DSi/3DS, have no "legal" means of being acquired for distribution. The C64, and some versions of the PC/Tandy that have ROM BASIC, you can not distribute the ROM BASIC either.

Correction. The GBA is fairly easy to bypass with unofficial BIOS. The GBA BIOS specifically is mainly used to display the spash screen and allow rudimentary downloadable content using one game cartridge and a link cable. You can easily start the games without a copyrighted BIOS. The Super Retro Advance port (plugs into SNES) is proof of this. Games boot instantly without any type of splash screen, however it is not possible to download link cable software on it.

 

Another example, all but the earliest Genesis consoles have a BIOS chip which is only used to authenticate the game cart. However while some consoles may have a BIOS, 7800 for instance uses one to authenticate carts, they aren't necessarily required to run the game ROM, but rather check that it has been signed.

 

CD consoles, on the other hand, absolutely cannot start directly from a CD-ROM drive without some sort of BIOS file. Nor can PC motherboards boot an OS from floppy, hard drive, or CD without a BIOS to initiallize the system. Specifically regarding consoles, there is no way around playing a CD console without a copyrighted BIOS file. Some BIOS may be reverse engineered or hacked, but still require some string or key within the file in order to initialize the disc.

 

This is the case for Sega CD, PSX, and most other CD consoles. PCe is an exception to this rule because the BIOS are contained within the system cards which are required to run the games. So for instance a PCe-CDROM type system running over an FPGA that interfaces with a modern CDROM drive, would absolutely need to have an original system card plugged into it's slot in order to run CD games, or a flash cart containing copyrighted BIOS.

 

You cannot legally sell the system as CDROM compatible without a BIOS of some kind running on it, and in the case or PCe the system card will suffice. Most other CDROM systems have the BIOS file burned onto a mask ROM or flash chip inside the peripheral. This means in order to run the CDs, you must get original hardware to interface it or violate copyright. This also means an interface that supports the original Sega CD addon for Sega CD games since the BIOS is contained within the drive unit.

 

So I find it unlikely that Analogue will ever release a CD based system because of the BIOS contingency. Even many fancy software emulators require a copyrighted BIOS in order to run ISOs, but this is on a case by case basis. Neo Geo I believe has a BIOS, or at least reports to the game cart whether it is operating in arcade or home console mode. Analogue was able to sell rebuilt Neo Geo systems because it reycled the original chips and hardware. Each unit was licensed by first sale doctrine so they could reuse the chips in a remade clone. This may or may not be possible with Neo Geo without a BIOS as I'm not familiar with the system, but IIRC Kevtris said it was possible, just a massive undertaking and requires a huge FPGA larger than what's currently present on the Super NT. The pin counts on the cart bus connectors alone are staggering.

[Kismet]

The Sega CD and 32X being horrible business decisions doesn't negate the fact that they had some great games that many hardcore fans (Analogue's target market) want to be able to play on modern TVs if they're going to shell out hundreds of dollars on an FPGA Genesis. It's not rocket science, yet this question keeps coming up.

 

Let's assume for a minute that a FPGA 32X+SegaCD MegaNT that can play SG1000/SG3000/GG/MS/MD/32X/MCD/Saturn games came out. It's within the realm of possibility, though it would likely cost more than anyone would want to pay for.

 

Now let's assume that this could be squeezed into a $200 price foot print, and carries the "neve-R-fail cd-rom" drive to read actual discs. How many discs actually still work? Probably less than 10% depending on storage conditions.

 

SEGA's mistake in making all these different pieces of hardware, was that they made "separate" pieces of hardware. That's why they aren't making hardware anymore and gave up after the dreamcast. That was the "right" business decision, because their hardware division clearly had a hard time making compromises based on their arcade hardware, which if you notice every arcade hardware after the Triforce (Gamecube hardware) is based on x86 PC's. The entire hardware division must have been fired after the DC.

 

Like because SEGA liked to use off-the-shelf parts for the CPU in all their systems, and as such FPGA cores already exist for those parts. It's the video parts that are going to be the pain.

 

But striving for accuracy has a problem with SEGA hardware. The 32X was over-engineered to work with the base unit, and basically has 2/3rds of the Sega Saturn in it already. To make a MegaNT work with the original 32X or original SegaCD would require intentionally making all the electro-mechanical mistakes SEGA did originally. That is just one hill nobody should die on.

 

The elephant in the room however is that there is no way of actually creating a HDMI console with the original 32X. If you're going to support the 32X, you have to build it in to the FPGA, otherwise not at all.

 

The GG/SG1000/SG3000/Master System support doesn't even need the power base converter (it's just a straight pin converter, because the sega cards and carts are a different shape, and the GG carts are obviously smaller.)

 

The SegaCD's main issue goes back to the problem of how the MD was not designed for a CD expansion unit. It was basically an attempt to retrofit one onto it. But if you check the pinout, you'll notice that the expansion card and the cartridge slot have nearly all the same pins on it, so "adding" a SegaCD via the cartridge slot on a MegaNT is actually within the realm of possibility. Heck, it may not be unreasonable to make a "SD2SegaCD" cart that simply goes in the cartridge slot and could be something someone else creates later if the MegaNT firmware allows a "treat cart slot as expansion slot" option. Thus side-stepping the entire question of "should the MegaNT support SegaCD's?"

 

Adding a CD drive is essentially futile as you can't get drives that operate like the original drives anymore, and even if you could, it's one step too far to re-introduce the loading latency of a cd-drive for just about everyone.

[RabidWookie]

 

190 was the price chosen because any more expensive and it would have been as niche as the nt mini.

$199 would have made it too niche but $190 didn't, gotcha.

[D3ltax55]

Just got the super FX all in one from retro circus. It's all working on the super nt so far only played for a hour and a half tring the games. Had to wait a bit since it's backordered. Everything seems good. Tried the unlock everything with yoshi's island code from gamehacking.net and it worked once I soft reset the game. (select up or pick the run cart option again in the menu's) There really should be a hard restart so the full cartage restarts also so I can get to the menu's for the flashcarts and muilticarts without getting up along side the regular restart what we have now which is still us full.

I am hearing a there may be a AIO SA-1 cart. Im kinda out of my money from my budget at the moment. Was thinking just getting 2 custom SA-1 4-1 carts. I hope the time I have the funds the AIO cart will be out. I am hearing it's getting there but it's been kinda tough getting it all fit. But working on it and may have 12 or 13 games sources from youtube comments. I really hope for some translations in it like DBZ Hyper dimension translation and whatever game is worthwile.

 

[Shadowgate]

The Sega CD and 32X being horrible business decisions doesn't negate the fact that they had some great games that many hardcore fans (Analogue's target market) want to be able to play on modern TVs if they're going to shell out hundreds of dollars on an FPGA Genesis. It's not rocket science, yet this question keeps coming up.

I'm right there with you. I want an fpga Genesis, Sega cd, 32x. I'm just commenting at the encouraging talk from people about treating it like Sega with expansions. As in releasing separate systems and doing the Sega mating ritual all over again. That's one aspect of retro gaming I personally don't want to see perfectly replicated.

 

If they can't do an all in one solution then I'm all for waiting for when the better fpga boards are more cost effective. We have waited this long. There are a lot more consoles to go. Consoles with much higher barriers for entry that fpga could help.

[RabidWookie]

 

Let's assume for a minute that a FPGA 32X+SegaCD MegaNT that can play SG1000/SG3000/GG/MS/MD/32X/MCD/Saturn games came out. It's within the realm of possibility, though it would likely cost more than anyone would want to pay for.

 

Now let's assume that this could be squeezed into a $200 price foot print, and carries the "neve-R-fail cd-rom" drive to read actual discs. How many discs actually still work? Probably less than 10% depending on storage conditions.

 

SEGA's mistake in making all these different pieces of hardware, was that they made "separate" pieces of hardware. That's why they aren't making hardware anymore and gave up after the dreamcast. That was the "right" business decision, because their hardware division clearly had a hard time making compromises based on their arcade hardware, which if you notice every arcade hardware after the Triforce (Gamecube hardware) is based on x86 PC's. The entire hardware division must have been fired after the DC.

 

Like because SEGA liked to use off-the-shelf parts for the CPU in all their systems, and as such FPGA cores already exist for those parts. It's the video parts that are going to be the pain.

 

But striving for accuracy has a problem with SEGA hardware. The 32X was over-engineered to work with the base unit, and basically has 2/3rds of the Sega Saturn in it already. To make a MegaNT work with the original 32X or original SegaCD would require intentionally making all the electro-mechanical mistakes SEGA did originally. That is just one hill nobody should die on.

 

The elephant in the room however is that there is no way of actually creating a HDMI console with the original 32X. If you're going to support the 32X, you have to build it in to the FPGA, otherwise not at all.

 

The GG/SG1000/SG3000/Master System support doesn't even need the power base converter (it's just a straight pin converter, because the sega cards and carts are a different shape, and the GG carts are obviously smaller.)

 

The SegaCD's main issue goes back to the problem of how the MD was not designed for a CD expansion unit. It was basically an attempt to retrofit one onto it. But if you check the pinout, you'll notice that the expansion card and the cartridge slot have nearly all the same pins on it, so "adding" a SegaCD via the cartridge slot on a MegaNT is actually within the realm of possibility. Heck, it may not be unreasonable to make a "SD2SegaCD" cart that simply goes in the cartridge slot and could be something someone else creates later if the MegaNT firmware allows a "treat cart slot as expansion slot" option. Thus side-stepping the entire question of "should the MegaNT support SegaCD's?"

 

Adding a CD drive is essentially futile as you can't get drives that operate like the original drives anymore, and even if you could, it's one step too far to re-introduce the loading latency of a cd-drive for just about everyone.

I highly doubt 90% of Sega CD games have succumbed to disc rot. Disc rot happens, but fear of it is largely overblown. It requires a defective disc pressing and humidity. I've seen no evidence that a huge proportion of Sega CD games are rotting. Laserdiscs yes, due to how they were constructed, and certain PSX and Dreamcast games, but nothing widespread.

 

Your points about the details of the hardware are correct. The only issue I see for an FPGA Sega CD is the bios, since an external cd drive should be able to load the games. An FPGA 32X would be really expensive today, but like I said I'm fine with waiting for future Sega CD/32X FPGA add-ons when more powerful FPGA chips get cheaper.

Edited March 8, 2018 by RabidWookie

[RabidWookie]

I'm right there with you. I want an fpga Genesis, Sega cd, 32x. I'm just commenting at the encouraging talk from people about treating it like Sega with expansions. As in releasing separate systems and doing the Sega mating ritual all over again. That's one aspect of retro gaming I personally don't want to see perfectly replicated.

 

If they can't do an all in one solution then I'm all for waiting for when the better fpga boards are more cost effective. We have waited this long. There are a lot more consoles to go. Consoles with much higher barriers for entry that fpga could help.

I actually love Sega's insanity/balls in releasing not one but two hardware add-ons for Genesis. I think FPGA add-ons would perfectly replicate the crazy spirit of Sega's 16-bit gonzo business choices, while also serving to lower entry costs and buy time. Edited March 8, 2018 by RabidWookie

[cacophony]

To those who were disappointed in the lack of transparency: https://www.instagram.com/p/BgE6stVBoeA/

[SegaSnatcher]

To those who were disappointed in the lack of transparency: https://www.instagram.com/p/BgE6stVBoeA/

Yep, its the final texturing that keeps it from being true transparent. I think Analogue should consider leaving off texturing for the clear cases going forward.

[Kismet]

I highly doubt 90% of Sega CD games have succumbed to disc rot. Disc rot happens, but fear of it is largely overblown. It requires a defective disc pressing and humidity. I've seen no evidence that a huge proportion of Sega CD games are rotting. Laserdiscs yes, due to how they were constructed, and certain PSX and Dreamcast games, but nothing widespread.

 

Your points about the details of the hardware are correct. The only issue I see for an FPGA Sega CD is the bios, since an external cd drive should be able to load the games. An FPGA 32X would be really expensive today, but like I said I'm fine with waiting for future Sega CD/32X FPGA add-ons when more powerful FPGA chips get cheaper.

 

People who actually have properly stored their discs may still be able to play them, but how many people did that? Remember disc wallets? Remember rental discs? It's incredably risky buying a SegaCD or PSX game disc off eBay because there is a good chance it doesn't work, and you can't simply buff out the scratches. This problem persists in the used game market, where gamestop/ebgames just runs used discs through what is essentially a disk polisher and thus the disc looks good, but doesn't work more than half the time. People don't treat disc games with care. Maybe 10% is an exaggeration, but I'm fairly certain anyone who didn't buy the games new would not risk buying pre-owned ones. Whoever makes ISO's of the games, has to pretty much own the game and had the right kind of drive. When you try to read a heavily scratched disk, it copies those scratch errors too.

 

Troubleshooting if a game works on a MegaNTCD would be impossible because there would be no way to be certain that the disc was perfect. Any development of such would have to be tested against "perfect" bin/cue images that the disc ripping software doesn't change or try to correct errors in.

 

Let me tell you a quick story. A cousin wanted me to copy their PC game because her kids kept wrecking discs. So I was handed this game that looked passable, but when I tried to make a disc image of it, it only got about 20% in before the cd drive just gave up after 4 hours. This problem would be repeated for several more games, with only one game even getting half way.

 

That is what I base my 90% failure rate on. It's very unlikely that anyone who didn't intentionally keep their discs immaculate will have discs that are readable on a current drive. PSX games are worse than PC games for this because the PSX discs are often cheaper than PC game discs. In all likeliness the target demographic for people who want to play these games don't own the discs anyway, and that is really why there is no point in making a physical cd unit.

[RabidWookie]

 

People who actually have properly stored their discs may still be able to play them, but how many people did that? Remember disc wallets? Remember rental discs? It's incredably risky buying a SegaCD or PSX game disc off eBay because there is a good chance it doesn't work, and you can't simply buff out the scratches. This problem persists in the used game market, where gamestop/ebgames just runs used discs through what is essentially a disk polisher and thus the disc looks good, but doesn't work more than half the time. People don't treat disc games with care. Maybe 10% is an exaggeration, but I'm fairly certain anyone who didn't buy the games new would not risk buying pre-owned ones. Whoever makes ISO's of the games, has to pretty much own the game and had the right kind of drive. When you try to read a heavily scratched disk, it copies those scratch errors too.

 

Troubleshooting if a game works on a MegaNTCD would be impossible because there would be no way to be certain that the disc was perfect. Any development of such would have to be tested against "perfect" bin/cue images that the disc ripping software doesn't change or try to correct errors in.

 

Let me tell you a quick story. A cousin wanted me to copy their PC game because her kids kept wrecking discs. So I was handed this game that looked passable, but when I tried to make a disc image of it, it only got about 20% in before the cd drive just gave up after 4 hours. This problem would be repeated for several more games, with only one game even getting half way.

 

That is what I base my 90% failure rate on. It's very unlikely that anyone who didn't intentionally keep their discs immaculate will have discs that are readable on a current drive. PSX games are worse than PC games for this because the PSX discs are often cheaper than PC game discs. In all likeliness the target demographic for people who want to play these games don't own the discs anyway, and that is really why there is no point in making a physical cd unit.

I think you're exaggerating the issue a bit. I've bought several Sega CD games off ebay in the past few years and they all were in great condition and worked well.

[SegaSnatcher]

I'm right there with you. I want an fpga Genesis, Sega cd, 32x. I'm just commenting at the encouraging talk from people about treating it like Sega with expansions. As in releasing separate systems and doing the Sega mating ritual all over again. That's one aspect of retro gaming I personally don't want to see perfectly replicated.

 

If they can't do an all in one solution then I'm all for waiting for when the better fpga boards are more cost effective. We have waited this long. There are a lot more consoles to go. Consoles with much higher barriers for entry that fpga could help.

The reason why I personally think Kevtris can't implement both the 32X and Genesis via a single FPGA is simply the amount of time he's given to get his core ready. Adding 32X would probably at the very least double the amount of development time and my guess is Analogue wants to pump a new console every year. Also, it would need a bigger FPGA which might currently be cost prohibitive, but I have no idea exactly how many logic elements one would need for 32X.

[RabidWookie]

The reason why I personally think Kevtris can't implement both the 32X and Genesis via a single FPGA is simply the amount of time he's given to get his core ready. Adding 32X would probably at the very least double the amount of development time and my guess is Analogue wants to pump a new console every year. Also, it would need a bigger FPGA which might currently be cost prohibitive, but I have no idea exactly how many logic elements one would need for 32X.

It would almost certainly need to be a separate FPGA. Analogue should crowdfund 32X and Sega CD add-ons for an FPGA Genesis to eliminate their risk.

[scott64]

I hereby give Analogue permission to use my incredible design and all I ask in return is a shout out and maybe a free one.

[Kismet]

It would almost certainly need to be a separate FPGA. Analogue should crowdfund 32X and Sega CD add-ons for an FPGA Genesis to eliminate their risk.

 

Not going to happen. Not without the blessing of SEGA at least. I'd rather Analogue try and license the SEGA IP SegaCD games and just release that as several pack-in games on the internal console flash storage like Super Turrican on the Super NT. That would at least give a legal venue for licencing the BIOS. Otherwise Analogue would have to produce their own RE SegaCD Bios, and that's just not something I see happening when the goal is accuracy.

 

Like people might not realize this, but the "expansion" options of the 8-bit systems were because they were designed as computers. The SG1000, Famicom, C64, Apple II, Tandy CoCo, BBC Micro, ZX Spectrum, MSX, and so forth all started as computer systems. The Sega Master System was basically a consoled SG3000, the C64 Games System was a consoled C64, etc. The expansion options of the 16-bit systems (SFC/MD/PCE) were because "Multimedia" was the new thing, and they all realized that the CD-ROM was the future, but ultimately they all were half-baked "use the cd for redbook audio" type of answers.

[SegaSnatcher]

I hereby give Analogue permission to use my incredible design and all I ask in return is a shout out and maybe a free one.

FYI, you wouldn't need seperate slots for 32x and Genesis carts. Same amount of pins, hence why you don't have to remove the 32X from your Genesis anytime you want to play Genesis games.

[scott64]

FYI, you wouldn't need seperate slots for 32x and Genesis carts. Same amount of pins, hence why you don't have to remove the 32X from your Genesis anytime you want to play Genesis games.

Oops. back to the drawing board.