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FPGA Based Videogame System


kevtris

Interest in an FPGA Videogame System  

682 members have voted

  1. 1. I would pay....

  2. 2. I Would Like Support for...

  3. 3. Games Should Run From...

    • SD Card / USB Memory Sticks
    • Original Cartridges
    • Hopes and Dreams
  4. 4. The Video Inteface Should be...


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On the subject of scanlines, i've noticed that in 720p mode at 3x screen height, using the normal non-hybrid scanlines the line darkness/intensity will reach its maximum somewhere on the depth slider between 60-80 and anything more than that doesn't seem to affect them at all.

 

It's only when you go in to the Width & Height settings and change the height to anything less than 720 that the scanlines will darken beyond this at higher depth settings, although by changing the height to a non-integer scale this obviously starts to mess up the scanline spacing a bit.

 

Sorry to keep bringing this up but can someone else please test this on their own Mega Sg to see if this appears to be an issue?

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My 4K TV is doing much better than my 1080p display with 720p modes with scanlines. You can see very clearly on the 1080p display with solid colors that every other scanline is twice as thick as its neighbors. It's the TV's fault, or the fact that pixel scale isn't an integer factor. The 4K display's scanlines are evenly thick. The 1080p display in 720p mode looks weird with hybrid or regular scanlines. The thing about 1080p is that hybrid scanlines appear to be broken. In 720p, the lines blend together in white backgrounds. In 1080p there's lines even in the white. I like the 720p effect better, but the 1080p display ruins it. The 4k display doesn't.

 

 

Yeah, that's the main draw for running the SNT/MSG in 720p for me on a 4K display. I don't care if the 4K display is doing NN or not, it's clear that doing it this way maintains the "correct" look of the scanlines better. Same with the SNT. And since I'm playing on an OLED, having a little letterboxing looks fine to me.

 

----

 

So a quick update, the replacement MSG is on its way back. And their logistics folks sent out the replacement via SmartPost instead of Next Day. So yeah, this thing has been shipped 3 times, via ground each time, each time taking about a week. Fun.

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I just now tried it on my Everdrive X7 and it works fine for me. I have the newest rev X7 from stone age gamer

 

This is bizarre. I purchased my X7 in October when I pre-ordered the Mega SG. I checked the OS on the Mega Everdrive and I was on 3.06 so I upgraded to the latest 3.07 and the rom still doesn't work. When did you buy your X7?

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This is bizarre. I purchased my X7 in October when I pre-ordered the Mega SG. I checked the OS on the Mega Everdrive and I was on 3.06 so I upgraded to the latest 3.07 and the rom still doesn't work. When did you buy your X7?

In November. Also on os 3.07 as well. It could be the micro sd card. I would do a clean install. Reformat card and re copy all the files with a clean os.

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In November. Also on os 3.07 as well. It could be the micro sd card. I would do a clean install. Reformat card and re copy all the files with a clean os.

 

I'm using a sandisk 16gb micro sd card and it was a clean install. The game doesn't work on the Mega SG either, although it works on the MiSTer. Not sure why that is?

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I'm using a sandisk 16gb micro sd card and it was a clean install. The game doesn't work on the Mega SG either, although it works on the MiSTer. Not sure why that is?

 

 

Could be the rom?

 

Are you using the newest smoke monster mega ever drive pack 7.0.7? Because it works fine for me.

Edited by RetrogamerX
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Sorry to keep bringing this up but can someone else please test this on their own Mega Sg to see if this appears to be an issue?

 

I can confirm this behavior. At the default 720p setting, hybrid scanline depth settings above 80 have no effect. The same is true at default 1080p settings for hybrid scaline depth settings above 112.

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PSA: if you're following some video online on how to set up the audio on your Mega Sg, it's time to stop. According to GameSack, the latest firmware changed how all the settings work, so nobody's suggestions are going to work like they did on the release-day firmware. https://twitter.com/GameSack/status/1114390465665568769

I think I'd already figured that out for myself because I had to lower the PSG channels below what I'd originally had them set to.

Of course, GameSack says it was released before it was ready, and that may be true. But I have a feeling that without feedback from the early youtube crowd, Analogue never would have been able to make the latest round of changes quickly. Very much a chicken-and-egg scenario, and I just think it's the curse of being an early adopter.

Sorry to keep bringing this up but can someone else please test this on their own Mega Sg to see if this appears to be an issue?

Hybrid scanlines look like ass at 1080p. Having a very thin black line that goes through perfectly white areas looks ridiculous. I play at 720p with hybrid scanlines. I can confirm that there's no change once you get beyond a certain point at both resolutions, though.

Edited by derFunkenstein
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I love Joe and I kind of get what he's saying, but it's not like the Super NT didn't go a ton of firmware revisions. It was released in a state good enough for casuals, and was refined and dialed in for people like us, just like what is happening to the SG. Now, I certainly understand his frustration with him being contacted by people going "arrrgh your settings suck," but I don't get him saying that the unit was released "unfinished."

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PSA: if you're following some video online on how to set up the audio on your Mega Sg, it's time to stop. According to GameSack, the latest firmware changed how all the settings work, so nobody's suggestions are going to work like they did on the release-day firmware. https://twitter.com/GameSack/status/1114390465665568769

 

I think I'd already figured that out for myself because I had to lower the PSG channels below what I'd originally had them set to.

 

Of course, GameSack says it was released before it was ready, and that may be true. But I have a feeling that without feedback from the early youtube crowd, Analogue never would have been able to make the latest round of changes quickly. Very much a chicken-and-egg scenario, and I just think it's the curse of being an early adopter.

Yeah, and it’s not like some of their suggestions weren’t wrong from the start... like telling people to just leave Cartridge/CD Audio on when they aren’t even connected to a Sega CD or playing special carts. That’s what caused the audio noise they complained about earlier in the video.

 

I mean... DUH. If they had even asked themselves “why is this optional?” and got an answer then they would have known better. Instead, they just complained that it defaulted to Off “for some reason” and theorized that it might be fixed in an update. Clearly, their knee-jerk assumption that it should be On no matter what was never even questioned and they didn’t notice the connection between their complaint and their advice.

 

Can’t edit their video, indeed.

 

I enjoyed their review and thought it was the best of the first wave but the hubris is pretty strong here. The idea that there is any one particular Genesis with perfect audio for all games continues to express that.

 

Hybrid scanlines look like ass at 1080p. Having a very thin black line that goes through perfectly white areas looks ridiculous. I play at 720p with hybrid scanlines. I can confirm that there's no change once you get beyond a certain point at both resolutions, though.

Exactly. They’re simply broken at 1080p. Don’t know what Kevtris is doing differently from MarshallH, but it’s clearly broken for anything other than 3x720p while Marshall’s work fine, agnostic of any output resolution you choose. Mega Sg’s hybrid scanlines are even broken on 2x windowed 720p!

 

Seems odd that Analogue would just throw up their hands and say something grossly over-simplified like “scanlines work better with 720p” rather than ask Kevtris to fix something clearly fixable... unless it isn’t.

 

Kevin?

Edited by CZroe
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I love Joe and I kind of get what he's saying, but it's not like the Super NT didn't go a ton of firmware revisions. It was released in a state good enough for casuals, and was refined and dialed in for people like us, just like what is happening to the SG. Now, I certainly understand his frustration with him being contacted by people going "arrrgh your settings suck," but I don't get him saying that the unit was released "unfinished."

It sounds extremely familiar too... like what we were hearing from Terra Onion’s fanatical supporters in the wake of Terra Onion vs. DarkSoft and the Super SD System 3. Was hoping they’d shut up after Terra Onion ate their words and revised the Super SD System 3... again. ;)

 

It was particularly laughable when they jumped all over Darksoft’s “unfinished” Neo Geo flashcart during BeAsT’s stream when, yeah, it was pre-release hardware. It was “unfinished.” So what? Well, they would respond to that by denying that we ever saw NeoSD in such a state when, in fact, NeoSD had a ton of similar issues when it was sent out to early users. It’s not that they simply forgot about those... it’s that they deluded themselves into believing it was perfect in order to jump on a hater bandwagon. Luckily, many examples of the early NeoSD problems remain on YouTube.

 

I do think the NeoSD Pro is the better product but deceptively editing BeAsT’s stream to make DarkSoft look worse while re-writing their own history and lying to perpetuate the delusion of their fans is pretty shady. To this day they have a legion of people claiming that TO only releases their products when they are finished or condemning “nit pickers” when TO demonstrably gets it wrong.

 

There was no excuse for the Super SD System 3 either, since they had prominent experts offering assistance and asking the right questions the moment it was revealed and put up for preorders. As soon as they refused to answer exactly what kind of DIN-8 cables we should buy in anticipation, I knew there was trouble brewing. It was clear they hadn’t considered the most important factors for anyone using that connector, and that wasn’t even the half of it.

 

Really hoping Game Sack isn’t on that bandwagon because it sounds like the exact same kind of rhetoric from THAT community.

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That's the set that I am using. I'm not sure why it doesn't work on the Mega SG and Mega Everdrive X7 and why it does work on the MiSTer?

 

 

It works on my Everdrive X7. I remember someone else having this same problem, but was a N8. You really need to do a complete clean. It worked for him. I would try a different sd card and start from scratch. I don't mean just copying and pasting everything from one card to another. I mean I completely new sd card and re download the everdrive pack. Because it does work fine on mine so it's something on your end.

Edited by RetrogamerX
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I can confirm this behavior. At the default 720p setting, hybrid scanline depth settings above 80 have no effect. The same is true at default 1080p settings for hybrid scaline depth settings above 112.

 

 

They’re simply broken at 1080p. Don’t know what Kevtris is doing differently from MarshallH, but it’s clearly broken for anything other than 3x720p while Marshall’s work fine, agnostic of any output resolution you choose. Mega Sg’s hybrid scanlines are even broken on 2x windowed 720p!

 

Seems odd that Analogue would just throw up their hands and say something grossly over-simplified like “scanlines work better with 720p” rather than ask Kevtris to fix something clearly fixable... unless it isn’t.

 

Kevin?

 

Hybrid scanlines look like ass at 1080p. Having a very thin black line that goes through perfectly white areas looks ridiculous. I play at 720p with hybrid scanlines. I can confirm that there's no change once you get beyond a certain point at both resolutions, though.

 

 

 

They should be able to get much darker at 720p. Try dropping the height to 719 and then adjust the scanline intensity and they will go much darker. That suggests to me that they are broken even at 720p and this seems to be the case for both normal and hybrid scanlines.

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So I have a few things to report. First, I got my new SMS adapter today and it is working as it should, so we can put that issue to bed. However, I'm seeing odd behavior with Wonder Boy III FM. First, I'll start by saying that the hack in the Smokemonster pack works fine played through the jailbreak. Finally! I still cannot get the same ROM to work in any configuration on my Nt Mini though, so I'm stumped as to what the issue there is. Has anyone been able to get FM sound to work for Wonder Boy III on the Mini?

 

With that said, I then tried to get it to work with my cart, but no matter what I do I can't get it to work with the cartridge. I tried all 4 of the BIOS files that I transferred over from my Nt Mini pack, but none work. In fact, I don't see any difference at all. When you load the different BIOS files on the Mini the startup behavior changes for some of them. Can anyone else confirm this behavior? Lastly, maybe I just have this whole thing wrong (since I had spent a lot of time and had a few different modders look at the FM mod on my SMS which wouldn't work for Wonder Boy III either), but is it not possible to get FM sound from a US Wonder Boy III cart? From what I remember reading it is, but I can't get it to work on my modded SMS, nor can I get it to work on the Mega Sg. All that said though, I was finally able to find a way to get it (ROM hack through the Mega Sg jailbreak), but it seems odd to me and I'd still like to get it working on my actual SMS at some point.

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I found something interesting regarding Genesis. I recently upgraded and purchased a Mega Everdrive X7 and downloaded the smoke monster pack to put on it. In the section "4 Color Enhancements and Restoration" I found a hacked Altered Beast rom with the name "Altered Beast Arcade Voice+Alternate Style (Hack) Linkuei v1, Pyron v2" and tried playing it on the Mega Everdrive X7 and all I got was a blue screen.

 

 

I did try out the "Altered Beast Arcade Voice+Alternate Style (Hack) Linkuei v1, Pyron v2" and it worked fine both via the Mega SG Jailbreak, as well as on the Everdrive X7.

 

Maybe it's a bad copy onto your SD card or something. What might be helpful is in the Smokemonster Packs there are multiple copies of that rom (in mine I count 13 duplicate copies :lol: ). Maybe try out one of the other locations? Also you didn't mention if you tried it out via the jailbreak.. maybe try that as well?

 

post-31-0-89567400-1554572563_thumb.jpg

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I am not great at this stuff, but would love to get ahold of all the hacks and such in the SmokeMonster 7.0.7 pack.

But I have tried many different searches, and downloads after creating accounts various places and keep getting errors when I try to load them from Megasync etc.

If anyone could be so kind as to PM me a good location for this set, I would be GREATLY obliged, thanks in advance!

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