FPGA Based Videogame System

[Chronos30]

Can you do a macro on those chips so they can be read easily? Golf uses Mapper (0). I messaged the developer of GALF and asked. We'll see if they let me know.

[F34R]

Which mappers have you tried? Try it with Mapper 30.

[Chronos30]

Which mappers have you tried? Try it with Mapper 30.

I have a zip file of what calls itself the Nt Mini Jailbreak pack. It has a bunch of BIN files inside. I'm not sure

which is supposed to be 30 though. I tried AxROM, "Basic NROM", BNROM, CNROM, CPROM, GNROM, HKROM, MHROM, PxROM, UOROM and UxROM.

The rest looked too specific. Most of the rips played but with various glitches on either the title screen, course screen, the green, or a combination.

 

I sent you a direct message.

Edited January 16, 2019 by Chronos30

[Great Hierophant]

It appears to be some kind of variant of Mapper 66/GNROM. The board uses one flash chip for PRG-ROM and one flash chip for CHR-ROM. Each flash chip is a 128KB chip, but there is only the single '161. The NES can address 32KB of PRG-ROM and 8KB of CHR-ROM at any one time, and the 161 gives you four bits to use for bankswitching. You may be able to freely allocate which bits to allocate to PRG banking and to CHR banking with that board. That would give you one of the following configurations for the actual game:

 

32KB PRG/128kB CHR

64KB PRG/64KB CHR

128KB PRG/16KB CHR

256KB PRG/8KB CHR

[Chronos30]

It appears to be some kind of variant of Mapper 66/GNROM. The board uses one flash chip for PRG-ROM and one flash chip for CHR-ROM. Each flash chip is a 128KB chip, but there is only the single '161. The NES can address 32KB of PRG-ROM and 8KB of CHR-ROM at any one time, and the 161 gives you four bits to use for bankswitching. You may be able to freely allocate which bits to allocate to PRG banking and to CHR banking with that board. That would give you one of the following configurations for the actual game:

 

32KB PRG/128kB CHR

64KB PRG/64KB CHR

128KB PRG/16KB CHR

256KB PRG/8KB CHR

The GNROM plugin from Kevtris' JB2.0 firmware zip gave like the 2nd best dump. The title screen and golfer face were white blobs, but the game proper was mostly correct with minor color glitches.

 

The MHROM was the best dump with garbled title screen/golfer but the rest of the game was accurate as far as I could tell. (I didnt try 2 player mode though)

 

I would not rule out Limited Run / Infinite NES Lives making this an exclusive variant.

Edited January 16, 2019 by Chronos30

[kevtris]

I don't think my MHROM dumps more than 64K of PRG/CHR, and that has 128K. So that's probably part of it. It could also be some kind of copy of the colordreams mapper (#11) - that has 8 bits nominally but you can do 4 since there's less ROM. I don't see any info/data on how the jumpers on the board work, but it can't be difficult. There's only a single '161, and nothing else, so it cannot be mapper 30.

 

There's quite a few famicom-only '161 mapper boards that exist, but I am not sure right now what the mapper numbers are at the moment. A few minutes with a multimeter though should clear it up. Just trace the data lines from the PRG ROM to the '161, then the '161 to the upper address lines of the two ROMs and that will tell how it's wired and thus what mapper it is.

[F34R]

The dev on this replied back to me and said it's CNROM, Mapper 3, yet it still doesn't dump right via NT Mini.

[kevtris]

The dev on this replied back to me and said it's CNROM, Mapper 3, yet it still doesn't dump right via NT Mini.

I guess it could be wasting 96K of the 128K PRG ROM, and only using 32K of it. The CHR might be similar- it could be using all 128K of it for CNROM duty- this would be 16 banks of 8K each. My CNROM dumper plugin only goes up to 32K though I think it is. So this is why you have missing graphics and such.

[F34R]

I guess it could be wasting 96K of the 128K PRG ROM, and only using 32K of it. The CHR might be similar- it could be using all 128K of it for CNROM duty- this would be 16 banks of 8K each. My CNROM dumper plugin only goes up to 32K though I think it is. So this is why you have missing graphics and such.

Interesting. Any way to "fix" that?

[Chronos30]

I guess it could be wasting 96K of the 128K PRG ROM, and only using 32K of it. The CHR might be similar- it could be using all 128K of it for CNROM duty- this would be 16 banks of 8K each. My CNROM dumper plugin only goes up to 32K though I think it is. So this is why you have missing graphics and such.

Thanks for the info Kevtris. INL's PCB's are clearly designed for much bigger games than this.

CNROM dump is promising. It's like the reverse of the MHROM dump - The title screen and "welcome to galf!" guy look good, the rest is glitched.

 

Do you mind if I ask how you compile CopyNES Mini binaries?

[kevtris]

The asm for all of the plugins is available in the copynes zip file on my website. I used tasm (telemark assembler) to assemble them. It's nothing too special or hard to make a plugin. Hacking the existing CNROM plugin would probably be the best solution. You could just force it to dump 16 banks all the time and then use a hex editor to trim it down if need be.

 

http://kevtris.org/Projects/copynes/copyware.html

[Chronos30]

The asm for all of the plugins is available in the copynes zip file on my website. I used tasm (telemark assembler) to assemble them. It's nothing too special or hard to make a plugin. Hacking the existing CNROM plugin would probably be the best solution. You could just force it to dump 16 banks all the time and then use a hex editor to trim it down if need be.

 

http://kevtris.org/Projects/copynes/copyware.html

Are there any versions of FFC.EXE and TASM.EXE (among other tools needed) compatible with 64-bit Windows?

 

e: FFC is just a copy operation isn't it.

e2: Nice, I just reproduced CNROM.BIN using a 32-bit version of TASM.

Edited January 17, 2019 by Chronos30

[ccovell]

Hi, Kevtris. I know you're nonstop busy, but I still hold out hope that you can someday fix the NT Mini core bugs, like the FDS IRQ not working on both my RAM adaptors on the Mini (meaning no loading of FDS disks), and the SMS FM sustain emulation being somewhat broken...

 

But did you know that the NSF player core has several bugs? The most disappointing one for me was in FDS NSFs.

 

From my quick test of Konami & Nintendo NSFs, the following FDS ones simply crash/freeze the player: Exciting Boxing, Exciting Soccer, Green Beret, Famicom Golf JP Course, Zelda II (Link no Bouken), Time Twist, Doki Doki Panic.

Some FDS NSFs will play, but will crash / play obvious erroneous notes starting from a certain song number. These include: Almana no Kiseki (crashes from song #9); Dracula II (#2); Exciting Baseball (#4); Gyruss FDS (#2); Meikyuu Jiin Dababa (#3); Famicom Golf US Course (#C); 3-D Hot Rally (#5)

[kevtris]

Hi, Kevtris. I know you're nonstop busy, but I still hold out hope that you can someday fix the NT Mini core bugs, like the FDS IRQ not working on both my RAM adaptors on the Mini (meaning no loading of FDS disks), and the SMS FM sustain emulation being somewhat broken...

 

But did you know that the NSF player core has several bugs? The most disappointing one for me was in FDS NSFs.

 

From my quick test of Konami & Nintendo NSFs, the following FDS ones simply crash/freeze the player: Exciting Boxing, Exciting Soccer, Green Beret, Famicom Golf JP Course, Zelda II (Link no Bouken), Time Twist, Doki Doki Panic.

Some FDS NSFs will play, but will crash / play obvious erroneous notes starting from a certain song number. These include: Almana no Kiseki (crashes from song #9); Dracula II (#2); Exciting Baseball (#4); Gyruss FDS (#2); Meikyuu Jiin Dababa (#3); Famicom Golf US Course (#C); 3-D Hot Rally (#5)

It depends on what FDS NSF rips you are using. If they are dirty rips, it won't run them. There can't be CLI or writes to the PPU in there. A lot of NSFs used to write to the PPU and turn NMIs on and things like that. As for IRQs from the port, maybe there's a hardware issue with the IRQ pin. I used the FDS RAM adapters (I have three different ones and three drives and all 6 worked) many times. I tried the FDS units on 20 different boards, as well and it worked on all of them.

[ccovell]

It depends on what FDS NSF rips you are using. If they are dirty rips, it won't run them.

 

I knew you would say this so of course last night before making my post I re-downloaded plenty of NSFs and tested them again. I used JoshW's archive linked from here: http://www.vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=NSF -> http://nsf.joshw.info/

 

With so many of them working in players on the PC yet failing on the NT Mini, I don't know what to say. They could, in theory, all be dirty rips. I'll check one or two of them out in a debugger, but could you at least look into your NSF player for a bug causing crashes / glitched music?

 

 

As for IRQs from the port, maybe there's a hardware issue with the IRQ pin. I used the FDS RAM adapters (I have three different ones and three drives and all 6 worked) many times. I tried the FDS units on 20 different boards, as well and it worked on all of them.

 

You might remember many pages back that I posted oscilloscope traces of a failed FDS load on the NT Mini, and you said that perhaps you needed to add a stronger filter to the IRQ line in your FPGA core for the next release?

[kevtris]

 

I knew you would say this so of course last night before making my post I re-downloaded plenty of NSFs and tested them again. I used JoshW's archive linked from here: http://www.vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=NSF -> http://nsf.joshw.info/

 

With so many of them working in players on the PC yet failing on the NT Mini, I don't know what to say. They could, in theory, all be dirty rips. I'll check one or two of them out in a debugger, but could you at least look into your NSF player for a bug causing crashes / glitched music?

 

 

You might remember many pages back that I posted oscilloscope traces of a failed FDS load on the NT Mini, and you said that perhaps you needed to add a stronger filter to the IRQ line in your FPGA core for the next release?

I don't really remember much, I'm working 7 days a week, 10-12 hours a day for the last 3 years so I can't remember what I had for supper the day before. Sorry 'bout that. I am hoping to do some fixes to the ntm/snt this year, but I have to get through my current obligations before I can do that.

[ccovell]

It's alright, I certainly can wait. Please take days off, take a trip; you deserve it.

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

Tell me if you want me to read any of the text on the chips or something

CopyNES USB has a Peek and Poke mode for new mapper discovery but this requires a rudimentary working knowledge of hex editing and manipulation of machine code. The INL mapper should be documented on nesdev.com along with RetroUSB UOROM and Memblers GT-ROM. The latter two are flash mappers capable of recording save data to the flash ROM, though this capability can be disabled via a jumper on the PCB itself.

 

The presence or absence of the jumper itself does not affect the dumping procedure, just whether or not game data can be written back to flash ROM. Note also that if you have save data such as high scores recorded onto the flash ROM, this data will be preserved when you dump the game.

 

CopyNES Blue 5.01 has been recompiled to fix certain bugs and error messages which appear on Windows 7 and up. No signed hardware drivers necessary as the software interfaces directly via USB.

 

To dump an unsupported mapper requires you to manually write a byte to a specific register to initiate a bank swap. From there, you can dump the selected PRG bank, then repeat the process for each bank in the ROM. You will need to use a hex editor to manually stitch together the PRG segments (and CHR if applicable), then offset everything by 16 bytes and add an iNES header if you haven't already.

 

There are special developmental builds of FCEU Ultra that support the flash mappers specifically for development purposes. However even if you successfully dump an NES homebrew, you likely won't be able to play it on anything but a PC with a specific FCEU version.

 

And this goes without saying, but if you dump a homebrew, don't be a warez pirate douche. Please don't upload it or share the ROM without permission of the authors. Furthermore if the ROM on your cart happens to be serialized or watermarked, they will be able to determine who purchased the game and subsequently leaked it.

[Sneakyturtleegg]

I would very much like to purchase a copy of Galf, either the cart or a proper rom to play on my NT Mini. I wasn't aware of it until the posts in this thread. Unfortunately, it was published by Limited Run Games. The time frame to purchase their stuff is usually very short. I understand they are in business to make money and their name is "Limited Run," but I am not a fan of their business model. If you don't pre-order or repeatedly hit refresh at the moment of release, you lose out. Hey Sidebar Games......I've got money for you! I am sure there is more out there too!

[Newsdee]

You can try emailing the developers of the game and ask about purchase options.

[F34R]

I can guarantee you're not getting a ROM to buy, and LRG is already not selling any more carts for the game.

[cacophony]

Yeah, the LRG sales model is an odd one, and not very gamer friendly, but it seems to be working well for them from a business perspective. A good portion of the people that buy from them are collectors that are probably motivated by the limited quantity aspect. Though have been selling some games as open preorders that give you a month to order instead of just a 1-2 minutes.

Edited January 21, 2019 by cacophony

[Tanooki]

Yeah, the LRG sales model is an odd one, and not very gamer friendly, but it seems to be working well for them from a business perspective. A good portion of the people that buy from them are collectors that are probably motivated by the limited quantity aspect. Though have been selling some games as open preorders that give you a month to order instead of just a 1-2 minutes.

That's exactly why I do NOT buy their games. I find their model self serving and very infuriating. There have been a couple games they published I would have liked a crack at awhile back, but you basically had to be online at the time, and get through everyone slamming for the goodies. I had a feeling it wouldn't work and there would be the obvious end game of it, and it was. Expensive ebay troll listings to pay for the right to have the game for a premium, and then your shelf queen collector types who bought and shelved the stuff since they could play the digital game. A total lose lose in my book. Some have made it to retail as they started to partner with Best Buy I saw, but the prices there seemed to not be great and not really what I was after either so it was like some salt and lemon into a cut as far as how I felt about it. It's nice they do some open preorder stuff now, that kind of cuts back, but if you can't afford it at the time or you're too busy, it kind of sucks as there's the pressure of get it now or likely not at all going on which isn't nice either.

[F34R]

They could make so much more if they'd double those "collector" items.

[cacophony]

They could make so much more if they'd double those "collector" items.

 

Not necessarily. They've experimented with larger quantities and it often doesn't translate to larger sales due to reduced collector interest.

To be clear, I'm not saying I agree with their business model or like it. Just that more availability/quantity doesn't mean more sales for a lot of the games they sell.