FPGA Based Videogame System

[SegaSnatcher]

4 minutes ago, impetus_maximus said:

i'm sorry, but make a save of what?

i guess i'll wait to see if more report positive results with v1.5 boards get posted.

latest as in the one i'm attempting to flash? that makes sense if it's based off 4.9 official. if that is the case, i'll wait for 5.0 official. i would be happy if that at least flashed.

 

thank you both for taking the time to help out!

/max

One last thing, do you have something inserted in the MegaSG cart slot when you try to update firmware?  Try to remove the cart and try again.  

[Atariboy]

Yes, this latest jailbreak v7.9 that came out an hour or so ago is the equivalent of the official v4.9 that your Mega Sg shipped with.

 

I'd keep experimenting if I were you, since the jailbreak is very useful and you could be in for a very long wait for an official v5.0 release. The jailbreak adds SD rom loading for not only the Genesis and Master System which you already can do with your Everdrive, but also SG-1000 and Game Gear. And it adds a bonus Colecovision core.

 

I personally wouldn't want to be without those extras, even though I own a Mega Everdrive.

Edited June 25, 2023 by Atariboy

[impetus_maximus]

2 minutes ago, SegaSnatcher said:

One last thing, do you have something inserted in the MegaSG cart slot when you try to update firmware?  Try to remove the cart and try again.  

No, i removed my Mega Everdrive. i've tried resetting settings to default, and changing the card speed to 'normal' in settings. still no go

what did you mean by 'make a save'?

 

1 minute ago, Atariboy said:

Yes, this latest jailbreak v7.9 that came out an hour or so ago is the equivalent of the official v4.9 that your Mega Sg shipped with.

thanks for clarifying.

[Atariboy]

Perhaps SegaSnatcher was thinking that video settings and such are saved to the SD card?

 

That's what I thought he was getting at and if you're able to successfully save your settings, you know the SD slot is operable. But I see no sign of a system settings file on my Mega Sg's SD card. Must be stored internally.

 

Edit: What happens if you insert a blank FAT32 card into the system? I would think it would automatically generate some empty folders like the BIOS folder.

Edited June 25, 2023 by Atariboy

[impetus_maximus]

32 minutes ago, Atariboy said:

Edit: What happens if you insert a blank FAT32 card into the system? I would think it would automatically generate some empty folders like the BIOS folder.

just tried that. booted, played some Ultracore. powered off. looking at it on a PC there were no files/folders created.

[SegaSnatcher]

14 minutes ago, impetus_maximus said:

just tried that. booted, played some Ultracore. powered off. looking at it on a PC there were no files/folders created.

Yeah, sounds like a busted SD Card slot.  Only other thing I can think off is unplug the Mega SG entirely and reconnect the power and see what happens with the SD Card inserted. 

What is the size of your SD Card?  If its bigger than 32GB then you need to use a formatter tool like https://fat32-format.en.softonic.com/

Format using that tool and if it still doesn't work then try to contact Analogue and tell them you are having issues with your SD Card slot. 

Edited June 25, 2023 by SegaSnatcher

[Tanooki]

Strange the Nt Noir got an update and Sega Gen/MD...yet no SNES still.  I still have the old JB space under smokemonster packs on github bookmarked and it still has the older versions on both.

[Atariboy]

New Mega Sg's started shipping earlier this week and have started reaching people's hands over the past several days. Super Nt's start going out next Monday, iirc.

 

So I'm crossing my fingers that the timetable will be similar and perhaps a week from tonight, the updated Super Nt jailbreak will hit.

 

Also, these latest jailbreaks aren't going up on SmokeMonster anymore. You need to watch this space. 

Edited June 25, 2023 by Atariboy

[impetus_maximus]

22 minutes ago, SegaSnatcher said:

Yeah, sounds like a busted SD Card slot.  Only other thing I can think off is unplug the Mega SG entirely and reconnect the power and see what happens with the SD Card inserted. 

What is the size of your SD Card?  If its bigger than 32GB then you need to use a formatter tool like https://fat32-format.en.softonic.com/

Format using that tool and if it still doesn't work then try to contact Analogue and tell them you are having issues with your SD Card slot. 

another user on reddit suggested loading a font from the SD card. trying that i get "cannot mount sd card!" so it looks like it's dead.

i used 2 different cards. one 2GB, and another 8GB both formated to Fat32.

 

i'm going to contact them. not sure what to say. i don't have any fonts, and there are no other official firmware to flash to.

[Atariboy]

If you're 100% sure that the last time you inserted your card just now that the lock slider on your micro SD card adapter didn't just get accidentally moved to the locked position, yeah, it's probably a faulty card slot.

 

"Cannot mount SD card" is the error it throws when the card is locked or if it doesn't detect a card in the slot. So it seems now that you've tried multiple properly formatted cards without luck that it's likely the latter reason why you're seeing this error, which leads back to there being a fault with the SD card slot if it's unable to see cards that you know to be working.

Edited June 25, 2023 by Atariboy

[impetus_maximus]

I'm convinced there is problem with the Sg. I made a polite and thorough video and emailed it to Analogue. including the card working in a laptop, formatted to fat32, not being locked, and has a FONT folder in it. putting the card into the Sg, and it failing to mount.

 

thanks again everyone. :)

*fingers crossed

[blzmarcel]

On 5/18/2023 at 12:14 AM, roots.genoa said:

Then I hope the Duo won't emulate the original hardware too closely, given that CD-Rs damage CD-ROM² drives in the long run. 🙂

I have been using computers and consoles since the 1980s and used CD-ROM drives of all sorts since they first came out, and I cannot recall any such problem with CD-Rs damaging CD-ROMS, nor CD-Audio players. CD technology was designed in a way that this could not be the case barring something defective with the laser or or mechanisms or control circuits. However, in case I am missing something, can you cite some examples which might shed some useful info on some specific cases?

[roots.genoa]

12 minutes ago, blzmarcel said:

I have been using computers and consoles since the 1980s and used CD-ROM drives of all sorts since they first came out, and I cannot recall any such problem with CD-Rs damaging CD-ROMS, nor CD-Audio players. CD technology was designed in a way that this could not be the case barring something defective with the laser or or mechanisms or control circuits. However, in case I am missing something, can you cite some examples which might shed some useful info on some specific cases?

PC Engine's CD-ROM² are not encoded like traditional CD-ROMs. They were created before the standardization of CD-ROM. So it's completely normal a CD-R would not damage a CD-ROM drive...

All I can say is when I use CD-Rs on my PC Engine Super CD-ROM², not only do they take longer times to load, but afterwards, if I use original games, they run slower as well, which makes me think the CD-Rs do "something" to the drive.

[Kaide]

2 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

PC Engine's CD-ROM² are not encoded like traditional CD-ROMs. They were created before the standardization of CD-ROM. So it's completely normal a CD-R would not damage a CD-ROM drive...

All I can say is when I use CD-Rs on my PC Engine Super CD-ROM², not only do they take longer times to load, but afterwards, if I use original games, they run slower as well, which makes me think the CD-Rs do "something" to the drive.

I think you need to clarify what you mean by this. The fact that it can read CD-Rs at all means the bits are encoded the same way on the physical disc.

 

If you are talking about the format of the data directory (aka Filesystem) on the disc, that shouldn’t matter either as a clean rip is a byte-for-byte copy. 
 

The thing that pops into mind immediately is more that the laser in early drives tends to not like CD-Rs as the pits aren’t as cleanly defined as they are on pressed discs. This can lead to retries and the like, which leads to slow loading of data.

 

Analogue today if they offer up a CD drive, it’s going to be a mostly off the shelf unit, possibly with custom firmware if needed. They aren’t going to be building a CD drive from scratch.

[DragonGrafx-16]

I doubt that the CD drive in the Duo R/RX is the same as the CD drive addon that was released in 1988. CD technology advanced a great deal in that time and I have noticed no difference in loading times of the one pressed Super CD game I have compared to CD-Rs. PC Engine CD games are just audio CDs with separate tracks, though. When the Duo R was in development I am sure that NEC could have foreseen that people might try playing audio CD-Rs on the console within its retail lifetime. I have never heard of a burnt CD hurting any 90s CD player.

Edited June 30, 2023 by DragonGrafx-16

[roots.genoa]

10 hours ago, Kaide said:

I think you need to clarify what you mean by this. The fact that it can read CD-Rs at all means the bits are encoded the same way on the physical disc.

I'm sorry, I don't know the specifics. But CDs that are professionally pressed run way better than those who are just burnt, and for the PC Engine it's said to be better to use 600M CD-Rs (which are very hard to come by these days) and use a very slow burning speed (which is also impossible when using a DVD/BR drive that can't burn under 8x).

 

If it works for you, good for you. Maybe it doesn't really damage the drive, I don't know. But I just don't want to use CD-Rs anymore, and I'm not the only one. I'm gonna get rid of Super CD-ROM² soon anyway.

[Austin]

Anyone get a shipping notification for their Super NT? Analogue stated it would happen the week of the 26th, but we’re basically at the end of that now.

[Reaperman]

That new Game and Watch core is sweet. It's in the pocket updater already, but the MiSTer version still has to be manually installed. Quite happy that it does a few tiger/konami handhelds too, since I'm far more familiar with those. Top Gun has been on my purchase-list for some time now, so it's great to give it a go.

 

I think it looks a lot better on that little pocket screen than on MiSTer, IMO. It can also more safely make assumptions about controller layout.

 

Any word on the adapter set shipping dates beyond '2023'? I'm feeling a slight Lynx kick coming on.

 

 

Edited July 1, 2023 by Reaperman

[Kaide]

On 7/1/2023 at 12:15 AM, roots.genoa said:

I'm sorry, I don't know the specifics. But CDs that are professionally pressed run way better than those who are just burnt, and for the PC Engine it's said to be better to use 600M CD-Rs (which are very hard to come by these days) and use a very slow burning speed (which is also impossible when using a DVD/BR drive that can't burn under 8x).

 

And this is for the reasons I've already covered. It's linked to the need to burn slower as well. Burning the disc slowly gives it more time to burn in more distinct pits and lands, which makes things easier for these older CD drives that aren't as sensitive. As for the 700MB CD-Rs not being "as good", that has more to do with the tolerances in older pickups. Since the 700MB discs are a bit more dense, a laser that is borderline to the CD spec might have issues reading it if it can't cleanly focus on the single track and picks up noise from the adjacent tracks. That said, if the drive reads it, the drive reads it, and the tolerances for that unit are fine. But I can see how the rule of thumb would come about as some folks could very well have units that don't read the 700MB discs reliably.

 

The drive unit in the Analogue Duo is going to be a modern unit. Meaning it will have a modern, more sensitive optical pickup for the laser return. This will make it more tolerant of CD-Rs than the original hardware ever was. It will also mean 700MB discs shouldn't be a problem.

 

That's assuming that Analogue doesn't lock out CD-Rs in firmware like Virtual Game Station did back in the day.

 

On 7/1/2023 at 12:15 AM, roots.genoa said:

If it works for you, good for you. Maybe it doesn't really damage the drive, I don't know. But I just don't want to use CD-Rs anymore, and I'm not the only one. I'm gonna get rid of Super CD-ROM² soon anyway.

 

You don't know, but you made the claim that they do with pretty high certainty earlier in the thread. While the hunting can add a bit more wear to the mechanism over time, it's not a direct harm. No more than driving faster in your car will damage it due to the extra wear. That's an old wives tale.

[roots.genoa]

3 hours ago, Kaide said:

The drive unit in the Analogue Duo is going to be a modern unit. Meaning it will have a modern, more sensitive optical pickup for the laser return. This will make it more tolerant of CD-Rs than the original hardware ever was. It will also mean 700MB discs shouldn't be a problem.

Yeah, obviously. I was kidding when I said I hope it won't emulate the original drive to closely.

 

3 hours ago, Kaide said:

You don't know, but you made the claim that they do with pretty high certainty earlier in the thread. While the hunting can add a bit more wear to the mechanism over time, it's not a direct harm. No more than driving faster in your car will damage it due to the extra wear. That's an old wives tale.

Even if it doesn't damage the drive, it doesn't change the fact CD-Rs load more erratically, and original CD-ROM² as well when played afterwards. So that's a good reason enough to stop using them imho.

[Austin]

As far as PCE DUOs are concerned, there are many potentiometers on the board that have to be dialed in. Hard to do without an oscilloscope, but the well known Turbo-focused repair guys on the ‘net have dialed them in specifically for CDrs, then they read fine. The CDrs themselves aren’t inherently harmful to the hardware.

 

My original DUO is flaky with CDrs. Some load perfectly, while others take longer to load, stop loading, or the music cuts out. Been meaning to get it sent to a guy that can tweak the pots for me, but it’ll be redundant when I get Analogue’s console so I will probably hold off.

[SegaSnatcher]

I wonder how DUO will handle burned discs. 

Edited July 4, 2023 by SegaSnatcher

[Atariboy]

Being a modern optical drive, I can't imagine that the Analogue Duo will have any issues there.

[impetus_maximus]

On 6/25/2023 at 1:17 AM, impetus_maximus said:

I'm convinced there is problem with the Sg. I made a polite and thorough video and emailed it to Analogue. including the card working in a laptop, formatted to fat32, not being locked, and has a FONT folder in it. putting the card into the Sg, and it failing to mount.

 

thanks again everyone. :)

*fingers crossed

12 days and no reply besides the automated one. the unlisted video has 2 views so i KNOW they got it.

[impetus_maximus]

Finally got a reply form Analogue (after i sent a second email) they are going to have it shipped to a repair center.

whew 😊