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Warrior 64 Clone Console Is The Ultimate N64 Remake


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OK, as probably the most prolific UltraHDMI installer (literally installed several hundred), I'm inclined to pick this thing apart but I will point out that MJR is wrong about it being no better than an external cable. It clearly restores analog RGB from the digital side then digitizes the analog RGB.

The "installation video" from weeks ago, if you can call it that when they only pretended to install it, clearly shows that it interfaces with the digital side of the DAC for RGB. N64 board variants have two very different kinds of video DACs, one with analog RGB output and another with a smaller pin pitch that also performs audio DAC functions. The Warrior 64 QSB that interfaces with the DAC can be rotated for the other pitch, but since only one type has audio, it has to get analog audio from some place more consistent... which is clearly coming from the AV multi-out pins. That means digitizing analog.

Since they are using an ADC of some sort, it stands to reason that they are doing the same with RGB. Worst case, they are using the same chips that go in those $20 generic converters or $30 console-specific cables, which means deinterlacing non-interlaced 240p and using a framebuffer (added latency). Best case, they converted RGB to YPbPr and cloned the Super64/RetroTink 2X. Seems they did the former and got the RGB levels wrong, hence the blown out reds in MJR's video.

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No PAL support, so it's basically completely useless to me. It seems to be cheaper than what hyperkin was planning on selling theirs for, if you aren't bothered about buying controllers so there is that. I imagine the pal issue isn't a bother for most people though, but its always been ironic that European n64s couldn't output anything better than composite. (though there is modified s video cables available). 


I could install UltraPIF to change that but I don't know how their video mod will tolerate it. Granted, it probably makes sense to gut and replace their video mod anyway.

Looks like a custom creation of a N64 original board with the UltraHDMI (or equal) kit to bring an upgrade to the unit getting it happy on a modern TV.  I've already got an UltraHDMI installed console so I'm set, but anyone stuck using the old setup this is invaluable if priced right.

I recall they openly stated that these were original N64 boards back when they first launched the crowdfunding campaign.

...but, yeah, definitely NOT UltraHDMI or equal. ;)

Here is a thing that I found a while ago that I thought is interesting. You may find it interesting as well, but maybe you won't. No promises.
 
https://www.retrorgb.com/intecgaming-makes-dubious-claims-with-the-warrior64.html


The article assumes it is analog tot digital when, in fact, it is digital to analog and back to digital again. Yeah, seems pointless but that's what we get when the guys making it can't really engineer anything. They are probably adapting Borti's open source RGB mod to their off-the-shelf RGB to HDMI circuit that goes in their $30 cables (same that go in a $20 generic RGB2HDMI box). The difference here is that the N64 requires mods for RGB so all the $30 HDMI cables were even more disappointing (sourcing composite or S-Video). At the very least, they need to handle 240p correctly if they are going to market them for a primarily 240p console, but: Nope.

Jaysis. My brain hurts after reading this "article", but then, I did not really expect much from people who named their website "RetroDodo".
 
I scanned the Kickstarter but could not see any info about what is actually powering this (ugly) thing. Is it really a 1:1 board clone? If so, then it might start making sense, despite the rather poor pro-arguments (if your console is "dirty" then you can always clean it up) and overall cheap look.
 
EDIT: I see RetroRGB has already voiced some concerns, which was also my overall feeling about this lame campaign.
 


Yeah, definitely not a clone though it would've been cool if they sourced some RAMBUS chips to upgrade the consoles. Many have a pad available for the extra memory too and the rest could easily go on a module that fits in the Memory Expansion slot. They probably didn't want to deal with the heat.

FYI, the French (FRA) N64 had the PCB drawn to output RGB, but for some reason, Nintendo didn't included the required transistors and resistors on the boards.
Thus the console doesn't output RGB but you can easily mod it to do so if you have the knowledge (or not, it's really basic soldering).
A former employee of Nintendo Europe released, a few years ago, the components that Nintendo would have used so it's possible to see what a real original RGB N64 would have looked like.
I precisely did it the last week-end.
 
The result isn't as mindblowing as I expected - probably because people that record N64 gameplay using emulators instead of a console use or remove filtering on textures which make them looks less smudged, but the improvement is really apparent on text, untextured 3D models and whenever things move (so it doesn't really show well on pictures.)
On LCD :
(Composite then RGB)
...
 
And on CRT (doesn't really looks that good on picture, looks better in reality )
...
 
For the article, thanks you for it's an interesting warning. Although, if that console was a recreation, I would have had HIGH doubt.
Why would you change the shell, but keep the same switch spacing and more importantly, the RAM expansion slot??? I know one game doesn't work with the RAMpack on (if I recall) but shouldn't that be something you disable in software? In manufacturing, extra doors, slots, contacts add up to the cost.
 
There is no reason to include the RAM expansion port on a recreated machine... unless that machine is really just a N64 in disguise and that the people selling it are such cheapstakes they don't even have the courtesy of getting RAM modules and provide them with the system.


I don't think it's in disguise at all, since they openly stated that these were original boards. I even recall them mistakenly claiming that they would support any region, as if the cartridge slot shape was the only concern. Glad to see they eventually corrected that.

One reason the FRA RGB and restored RGB consoles look underwhelming is because the N64 blurs pixels horizontally (VI Blur) which makes pixels less distinct horizontally. It does this in 240p mode by taking a 320px line and making it 640px with in-between pixels that are made from sampling the pixels to the left and right. It is possible for a digital-side RGB mod to remove these interpolated pixels to sharpen them back up, but it doesn't look like the Warrior 64 is doing this. Not sure why, since VI Deblur is part of the open-source N64 digital RGB mods.
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Before I catch up on the rest of this thread, I want to nit-pick their Kickstarter page and "Installation Instruction" video.

 

Let's start with the video:

 

 

 

First, they only pretend to install it. They don't ACTUALLY install it. That would be fine if they actually covered all steps for installation, but they don't.

 

Second, they switch back and forth between new and older revision boards, which is easy to spot since the heat sink with screwed-on heat blocks switches to one with a stamped heat sink (no blocks) and back again. This is important since the DAC they PRETEND to solder to is significantly different between early and late board revisions. If this were truly an instructional video as the title claims then they would have to cover BOTH possibilities and yet they completely ignore it... or worse: actively hide it while acting like it's a very easy install "for anyone with little soldering experience" (quoted from the Kickstarter page). Ugh. The least they could have done was actually install it so that they are not misrepresenting the difficulty. Instead, they just wave a bit of solder wire around with a brand-new iron that isn't even plugged in and don't even pretend to use flux.

 

Even though they don't tell us, I can tell that the digital RGB interface board is designed to be reversible for the larger pin pitch of the alternate DAC but they don't mention that at all. Following these "instructions," someone who doesn't know may try to solder both sides, since the other end butts against the GPU and they know the video skipped the actual soldering. That would be a disaster!

 

Of course, comments are disabled so you can't even tell anyone the crucial bits of info they left out. Figures.

 

Even their disassembly has errors. They needlessly distinguish the screw by the LED from the 5 they removed earlier (minor) and did not instruct end users to lift from the back (major). Lifting from the back when the heatsink is still stuck to the chips is extremely important since the RDRAM is barely attached on one side and will often rip off the board. You don't have to worry about this if you have the most common type and unscrew the heat blocks but that isn't possible for late-model stamped heat sinks and that isn't how they instructed users anyway, so people need to know this. Heck, they started out telling people to remove the Jumper/Expansion Pak even though it comes off with the top shell and stays contained. One would hope they'd know this by the time they were this far into development. I'm going to laugh if they actually include a removal tool like the one they use in the video, since that's only useful when you are NOT disassembling the console. atariage_icon_smile.gif

 

I also noticed that the EMI grounding plate for the memory expansion slot magically disappears and never reappears in their video. I'm sure the console will still work fine, but there's no reason to skip that especially when people genuinely struggle to figure out how it's supposed to go (fits over a tiny lip around the slot). Speaking of EMI shielding, they call the shield on the bottom AND the heat sink on top "iron plate" when the heat sink is mostly aluminum, like almost every other heat sink ever made.

 

I won't pick apart the Kickstarter page nearly as much but the story is clearly fake. They go out of their way to describe their company as American and their engineer as someone who stumbled on his childhood N64 in his garage. They want us to think this is an American product made in America by a relatable American gamer who grew up here with the N64, even though it's clearly from China and even says Hong Kong on the Kickstarter. Everything from the Kickstarter to the package to the video was clearly written by someone who doesn't natively speak English. I have no problem with it being from them/there, but I do have a problem with them being deceptive about it. Not sure why "John" would bother to bring his childhood console across the ocean just to stow it into a garage and stumble on it decades later.

 

You can even see a foreign power plug in their so-called "prototyping" pic... the one that also shows a controller with the wrong cord (black plug on gray controller), an inexplicably-disassembled Game Pak, and a similarly-inexplicable opened-up Jumper Pak. Definitely not a Japanese or North American power supply. I also LOVE how they are playing Majora's Mask on that CRT with no Expansion Pak in the other pic that features the same questionable controller. For those who don't know: Majora's Mask requires the Expansion Pak. Another thing: What the USB cable is for? atariage_icon_wink.gif

 

I wonder if it will fit the aftermarket Expansion Paks which have a built-in lid so that they could expose the heat sink. If they stylized the new lid like that: probably not.

 

 

 

 

 

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There is quite of bit of speculation and misinformation in this forum post. Here's some clarification after reading all the questions and answers that have been posted to their kickstarter page, and also their updates section. (you too can see all of them yourself if you visit their KS page)

...

There is only two real questions that they have yet to answer fully to everyone's satisfaction (and I agree 100% that people should have this information). The first is the type of rgb to hdmi upscaler being used, and the second one is about lag. They did say that they have played with their finished modded console for many hours and they didn't experience any lag, but they also mentioned that they didn't have the necessary testing equipment to do a proper lag test (like RetroRGB or MLIG could do). Unfortunately, with about 2 weeks left to go, and with their KS already at 150% of their original funding goal, there would need to be more than 1/2 the backers to cancel for this KS to fail, but I doubt that will happen, and maybe that's why they have yet to answer those two outstanding questions. (?) [emoji30]

Hopefully my "informed" speculation is appreciated here:

Their answer regarding latency tells us all we need to know. If they engineered it without a frame buffer then they would know that it has less than a frame of lag. Clearly, they did not engineer their own scaler. They used an off-the-shelf scaler with a frame-buffer, which is even more clear since they have an ADC for audio. For video, these universally harm the video from 240p sources by treating them as 480i, which adds latency and blurriness (deinterlaces non-interlaced 240p). It's even worse for older consoles that used 60hz flickering to simulate transparency.

 

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Well there could be a difficulty if the N64 has an onboard ROM. ROM is software, and unlike the hardware itself, ROM is copyrighted for 90 years. And taking a "white room" approach might take years.

The security ROM embedded in the PIF? It's already been reverse-engineered by the creator of UltraHDMI, Jago, and one other, then released publicly as UltraCIC. Turns out it had an embedded Z80 processor hidden in there too.

 

 

 

They literally peeled the chip and studied it under an electron-tunneling microscope to extract the ROM, then reverse-engineered it to create UltraCIC and UltraPIF. They even figured out how to make auto-region based on the cart's CIC but they didn't include that with the UltraCIC project they shared freely. This is why the 64Drive from RetroActive (creator of UltraHDMI) supports auto-region when the Everdrive 64 v3.0 with UltraPIF does not. I have a box of Jago's UltraPIF on my bench right now. Been there for months waiting for more UltraHDMI!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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It's a pleasure to read you and your informations :)

About the bit where I mention is being probably a N64 board, I was goign fro mthe website, and you'll notice that on their site, they say several time "clone console" before you go down at the end of the page and reveal that it's not a clone but a N64 board. I admit I didn't scrolled that down because I felt it was suspicious.

 

About the original consoles, is there a way to disable the VI blurring? what you mention kiiiinda remidns of the 3DO doing it, and it is possible on 3DO to force the console in 240p mod (apparently some early Japanese models even have a switch for that). Is there a way to force the N64 in that or is that all in the chip and totally impossible?

Edited by CatPix
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2 hours ago, CZroe said:

Hopefully my "informed" speculation is appreciated here:

Their answer regarding latency tells us all we need to know. If they engineered it without a frame buffer then they would know that it has less than a frame of lag. Clearly, they did not engineer their own scaler. They used an off-the-shelf scaler with a frame-buffer, which is even more clear since they have an ADC for audio. For video, these universally harm the video from 240p sources by treating them as 480i, which adds latency and blurriness (deinterlaces non-interlaced 240p). It's even worse for older consoles that used 60hz flickering to simulate transparency.

 

Yes, it's appreciated. :-) But the question remains, how many frames of lag does it have? Without someone like RetroRGB getting one to test (and it seems MJR is going to try and contact him for help in this area), we won't know for sure how much latency it actually has. As for those AV to HDMI cables and adapter boxes, they are getting their video signal from the AV port and not the board itself like the kickstarter console does. Would it be safe to say that would make a difference? If yes, how much?

Edited by NotTooOld
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It's a pleasure to read you and your informations [emoji4] About the original consoles, is there a way to disable the VI blurring? what you mention kiiiinda remidns of the 3DO doing it, and it is possible on 3DO to force the console in 240p mod (apparently some early Japanese models even have a switch for that). Is there a way to force the N64 in that or is that all in the chip and totally impossible?     

 

Happy to oblige! atariage_icon_smile.gif If you asked just about anywhere else you would've likely got the wrong answer, since many people think that removing N64 anti-aliasing and VI Deblur are the same thing. Even the latest My Life in Gaming video conflated the two when they are very different things. So far, there is no known way to disable the VI Blur without a digital RGB hardware mod (UltraHDMI, Tim's N64RGB, Borti's N64Advanced/Basic, etc). With an analog-side RGB mod the OSSC can approximate it with a custom profile that matches the pixel clock when resampling analog... it can simply neglect to sample those "in between" pixels. Of course, you need an RGB mod to use the OSSC with N64 regardless so you may as well use one of the digital-side RGB mods that does VI Deblur without a custom resolution-specific OSSC profile. Only makes sense if you have the older/simpler mod already installed or an early version of Tim's N64RGB without the VI Deblur feature (you can update it with the right equipment but it's a hassle). 

The other kind of "Deblur" that people confuse with this can be removed with ROM patches or GameShark/Action Replay cheats. It removes the anti-aliasing, but I think AA is a good thing. AA increases the perceived resolution and reduces stair-stepping "jaggies" that you see on diagonal lines and curves. Obviously, that can't be the same as VI Blur since that only reduces pixelization between pixels on the same line and you can't have "jaggies" within one line. atariage_icon_wink.gif AA is why N64 games looked higher resolution than Playstation games even at the same resolution.

 

The last kind of blur is texture filtering which, as terrible as the blurry textures look, is also a good thing. You see, filtered textures was an advanced technique for 3D accelerators to make textures look high-resolution with less pixelization. Between the N64 and its contemporaries (Saturn and Playstation), it was the only one that supported it. The problem was that the N64 had a very small amount of memory for each texture and developers were slow to work around this since they really didn't have the cartridge space to store larger textures anyway. When it came time to cut their game down to fit on a smaller ROM chip, textures were the first thing to get cut down since they were basically uncompressed bitmaps that use a ton of storage space. By using texture filtering they could get away with cutting them down even more, so they could use a tiny grass texture and stretch it out over a whole field and you wouldn't see pixels... just patches of green that vary in color in different areas like patchy grass might. That also means they were tempted to go too far... and they often (usually) did.

 

I mean, look at how stingy they were in Super Mario 64, where they mirrored an eye, sideburn, mustache, and half of an "M," then just used solid-color polygons for the rest. When Super Mario 64 DS came around ROM capacities had increased so much that they were texturing his gloves and the fabric of his overalls, which is why some people think the DS hardware was more powerful (it wasn't). In the end, Rare and other devs had overcome the N64's texture limits with non-repeating tiles and such but they only had marginally larger cartridges to work with. Cartridge capacity limits meant you didn't see a drastic difference like you would if the N64 had 64MB magnetic disks from the start... or 700MB if they went with an optical disc drive (like CD). I think the N64 would've been received a whole lot differently if Nintendo launched with the 64DD as the standard format... or maybe a hybrid. As it is, many people still think the PlayStation had better graphics when, in fact, that was all down to the storage medium and not the actual graphics capability of the two systems.

 

To go back to the Deblur patches/cheats vs VI Deblur thing, the reason for the confusion is because they discovered the VI ("Video Interface") register for disabling AA thanks to a game that lets you toggle it... I believe it was Quake. Since people seem to think AA makes it blurry and they see "VI register" and they see the patches/cheats called "Deblur"l," so people thought it was all the same thing as VI Deblur. In reality, AA makes thing look like they are being rendered at a higher resolution than they are, sometimes even sampling from a higher resolution to output a lower resolution. The only reason why people might think AA looks blurry on N64 is because 320x240 is an extremely low resolution to use the technique, especially on larger TVs. There just aren't enough pixels to pull off the technique without people being able to distinguish the ones that blend out jaggies. Though all the detail factored in to that pixel and nothing was lost, a side-by-side can still look like a jaggy blurred line.

 

AA and texture filtering is what made console gamers drool at PCs with a Voodoo card back then. Since the Dreamcast had double the screen resolution (less need for AA) and huge 1GB disc capacities (plenty of storage for textures) it was the first console that really let texture filtering shine. Believe it or not, if the N64 had a disc drive it would've been a lot closer to the Dreamcast than the PlayStation. Funny enough, I had a Doctor V64 since 1997 and I always dreamed that someone would make a CD game for N64 to show what it can really do. Never happened, but the hardware existed and Nintendo certainly could have made a CD add-on of their own if they weren't so stubborn after their fall-out with Sony.

 

That's got me thinking: I wonder if this Warrior 64 thing will even fit on a 64DD or Bung Doctor V64. Hmm...

 

There's also the MGD³ (Multi-Game Doctor Series 3) Bung V64jr512 and Bung Multi Xchanger which, when combined, let you use the CD drive and parallel port of a PlayStation to load 64MB N64 games from CD. That's the same size as the largest N64 game's ever made (only a few) and you can literally fill up a 700MB disc with more than ten times that. I think it's kinda funny that the PlayStation is my N64's CD drive. atariage_icon_smile.gif Anyway, the V64jr fits the cartridge slot but it's still shaped along the lines of the N64 shell and might not fit the Warrior 64.

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Yes, it's appreciated. :-) But the question remains, how many frames of lag does it have? Without someone like RetroRGB getting one to test (and it seems MJR is going to try and contact him for help in this area), we won't know for sure how much latency it actually has. As for those AV to HDMI cables and adapter boxes, they are getting their video signal from the AV port and not the board itself like the kickstarter console does. Would it be safe to say that would make a difference? If yes, how much?

Yes. That's why I made this comment on MJR's review right after he uploaded it:d5f7f83c19e891dbae6d659d87d38b2e.jpg 

LOL! It almost sounds like I'm defending the Warrior 64.

 

The best you can expect from the AV multi-out is S-Video but RGB really isn't a huge improvement without VI Deblur. Since the DIY kit does not interface with the controller/PIF it would have to have a dedicated switch or button to handle that. I wish MJR would've told us more about the switch on the back, but I have to assume is it for aspect ratio since we now know it isn't for Super64/RetroTink 2X-style smoothening and aspect is what all the Hyperkin/#Pound/X-treme/LevelHike cables have a switch for.

 

The reason why I'm less concerned with how much latency it adds is because the rest should already be a deal-breaker. It can't possibly have better latency than the best of those crappy generic scalers it is based on, since that's what it is and we would already be using the cheaper generic one if it were any good. RetroTink 2X Mini has less than a frame of latency. The mini even bundles the N64 S-Video cable since it's better-suited for N64 than RGC RAD 2x cables (the Composite/RGB cable with a built-in RetroTink 2X).

 

It's bad enough when they take a $20 generic converter and repackage it to sell a $30 console-specific cable that doesn't even properly handle the resolution that console puts out (mangled 240p). Hyperkin went even further down that hole by charging another $10 extra for the TurboGrafx-16 cable ($40) and then ANOTHER $10 for the PC Engine adapter. That's $50+ for a $20 generic converter that still doesn't support that console's native resolution. Not my idea of something being purpose-built for the target console! To add insult to injury, it is one of the ones that still needs an external power source so you don't even get that convenience over the generic converters or RetroTink 2X. Hyperkin also unintentionally used the wrong DIN-8 connector for their Genesis model 1 cable so it keeps forcing it's way out but the TG16 cable not fitting PC Engine without an adapter looks intentional. DIN-8 comes in 262° (U-shaped) and 270° (C-shaped) arrangements so two pins have to bend in order to fit when there is a mismatch. Those bent pins act like a spring, pushing the cable back out.

 

In my opinion, it's deceptive to market a generic converter as something purpose-built when the generic converter is wholly unsuited for the resolution of the target console. I thought it was crazy enough that people were willing to spend $10 more than a generic converter for a console-specific one, especially when many still require an external power supply. I thought it was even crazier when all the TurboGrafx guys started buying them and modifying them to use for other consoles when they could've saved $10 and bought a generic in the first place, since that's all it was inside and they were coming full-circle with the modification. Now we have people spending even more for one BUILT-IN to their N64! It's nuts. Maybe their XBOX and Dreamcast cables make more sense because the consoles are 480i/480p but selling a cable that doesn't properly handle 240p for a console that is primarily 240p is down-right exploiting retro game enthusiasts.

 

That said, the shell and controller are interesting. If that was all this ever was then it would just be about whether we like the aesthetics or not and I would be happy that we finally have a replacement shell option. Assuming they could get the levels right (and it doesn't seem like they did), the digital RGB mod would make all that a great value but then they had to go and RUIN it by cramming in one of those $20 generic RGB2HDMI scalers. Ugh.

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Well, guys, I didn't want to dominate this thread by posting all this directly in the thread, so I put all in an IMGUR gallery:
http://imgur.com/a/E8ao2LI

The highlights that I haven't already mentioned here:
It definitely won't be adding analog RGB to the AV multi-out unless the final product is completely different and they make a new installation video, since it only connects to L, R, +5v, and Gnd on the multi+out pins and they never instruct users regarding C-Sync vs. PAL or potentially-populated components you may need to remove. That means you'll be stuck with their crappy HDMI converter even though their Kickstarter promises RGB and HDMI.

The image of Majora's Mask on their beat-up console is fake, since you can clearly tell it has a Jumper Pak (Majora requires Expansion Pak).

They lied about being a US company founded in the USA, even if they managed to register here. It's a common thing, just like Spigen, a South Korean company, registering in California just so they could put "Designed in California" on their products like Apple does. There is a Chinese power plug in the "Prototyping..." picture and the console matches the one used in the video with a British person speaking in front of a TV with Chinese on the menu.

The console from the mock installation video is also visible in the Kickstarter video, playing Super Mario 64, and the screen suddenly shows a Chinese screen describing AV input when the game screen fades out... almost as if it lost sync for some reason or someone was playing with the remote. One thing is for sure: "AV" does not equal "HDMI."

The man on the video is obviously just a foreigner in China/Hong Kong who they hired for a "White Monkey Job" gig (one day).

More about white monkey jobs from someone who has worked them (hilarious!):



This is also very common and explains why he has a British accent with a Chinese TV and superficially describes a product he doesn't really understand.
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Looks like MadLittlePixel got one:



I wonder why they keep sending DIY kits to the YouTubers who don't do DIY mods that require soldering.

Anyway, it looks like they've come up with some explanation that MJR had a prototype no one was supposed to have. They blamed a social media marketing guy working for them and MLP says the same guy has sent him early versions of things too.

They even provided a side-by-side disassembly video of a prototype versus final kit, both on NUS-CPU-04 boards but I'm not so sure that's what was in MJR's console. The prototype was clearly the traditional RGB bypass wired to the quick-solder board on the multi-out pins, which will only work on NUS-CPU-04 and earlier boards... usually found in consoles with serial number starting with NS1 in North America. That makes it even more clear that their HDMI board is just a generic $15 RGB2HDMI adapter on a new PCB, just like their LevelHike HDMI cables... complete with mangled 240p and a laggy framebuffer.

Avoid.

Ironically, their early prototype would be more functional than the final one though it would have limited compatibility. At least it would give you analog RGB at the multi-out. Unfortunately, MJR never tested this so I can't determine if they were lying or not. Maybe we can get MJR to try some HD Retrovision cables with it.

...oh, wait: he sent it to Bob from RetroRGB. Well, Bob will definitely get to the bottom of it. ;)
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Even if they're telling the truth, saying "we're going to give the backers the crappy version, and then design a good one later" doesn't instill any faith in the team behind this.

Their story changed. They say that MJR never had the version they are shipping to backers. They are probably insinuating that the person who sent it to MJR was rogue and told MJR wrong. 

Not sure who to believe but it sure sounds to me like backpedaling. They've already been proven to be making up stories and it looks like they've come up with a doozy this time.

 

If the unit MJR sent to Bob does not tap analog RGB from early NTSC consoles like the prototype they show in their new side-by-side, then we just caught them in another lie since it isn't the kind of prototype they claim it was.

 

Then again, MJR had a DIY kit too and may have sent that to Bob since MJR isn't exactly a DIY-mod guy.

 

 

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The price point alone never passed the sniff test. What does Tim Worthington's RGB mod with a switch cost these days? Around $60-$70? Prices for a used N64 are not cheap either. So, it is not realistic to expect to have a quality mod, an N64 board, plus whatever to install for that price point.

Bulk used N64s from Japan are dirt cheap. I should know, as I've imported nearly 100 of them in the last few years. atariage_icon_smile.gif I even got boxed Pikachu consoles for ~$55 a few months ago and for this purpose you could get away with the absolute junkiest of junk. They come with new power supplies, new Jumper Paks, new controllers, and new AV cables, but that means they don't need the old Jumper Paks, lids, controllers, AV cables, power supplies, etc. It doesn't matter if the reset button is stuck down (common), or the cartridge flap is broken/stuck, or if the shell is cracked. They are probably getting them less than $20 each... and I still find junk North American units here in the USA for $5 or $10 all the time (piecemeal, not bulk).

 

Got another $5 junk N64 last weekend. Though most of the junk $5 N64s just work and I may yet get this one to work, I haven't gotten it to work yet. I've probably found locally and bought 20 of them under $10 in the last few years and the only other one that didn't work in the last few years was easy enough to fix:

http://imgur.com/a/VXFbWsn

 

Obviously, they can't be bothered troubleshooting every broken console but if they have even half as much luck as I've had they can just absorb the loss... literally one in twenty $5-$10 parts consoles has actually needed board repair.

 

Edit:

950071deba7fa7466213c00c7dcb5abb.jpg

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It's also interesting to see which Youtubers they've sent their product to.  No offense to either MJR or MLP, but they tend to be... let's say "more positive and less technically-minded" than people like Bob from RetroRGB, MLiG, Gamesack, etc. 

 

It's possible they expected a "softball" review from MJR, didn't get it, and then sent it off to MLP—and to some extent I believe they got what they wanted there, as it's 11 minutes of what seems to me MLP trying his hardest to say something, anything nice about it... including a bizarre segment where he tests the Warrior 64 composite out through a Retrotink (not sure what that is supposed to prove... maybe that the composite out still works?).  His footage also reveals that it seems like the developers reduced the brightness in the output of the "final" version of the hardware in an attempt to hide the saturation issues... imo the footage of the composite output through Retrotink presented in the video looks better than the the Warrior 64 HDMI output!

 

MLP states several times that the Warrior 64 would be an acceptable solution for someone who doesn't care and just wants to play his old games on his new TV.  I personally do not care for this kind of review, because then every product becomes acceptable ("if you don't care that this electric shaver will die in two months and don't mind a cut here and there, then this cheap shaver is fine").

 

The better comparison to make would have been Warrior 64 over HDMI versus a stock N64 over SVIDEO connected to a RetroTINK 2X-MINI, as it would most likely show that the RetroTINK provides at LEAST the same quality in terms of image (with less lag) but at a price that is comparable (maybe even less) than the Warrior 64 and just as easy to use.

Edited by newtmonkey
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If you're going to say "If you don't care, it gets the job done" then you at least need to weigh it against other 'gets the job done' solutions.  A converter cable also 'gets the job done' and they start at $10.  If the results are the same (or worse!) than a $30 Hyperkin cable, then the person who "doesn't care" will opt for the cable and be done with it.

 

People who don't care, by their very nature, aren't going to spend a lot or go through the hassle of crowdfunding.

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