FPGA Based Videogame System

[bikerspade]

What is the most common use for an FPGA? I only know about them due to this project but are there some really well known uses? There must be something more common than what they are being used for here right?

We use FPGAs in the trading industry for high-performance (low-latency) processing of inbound multicast market data and bidirectional TCP/IP order entry messaging.

[iGom]

You can choose to do 60.09 in the Super Nt. There are minor tradeoffs though. At around 16:59 of the MLIG review they start talking about it. https://youtu.be/d_OW_t9RXEM?t=1019 Unless you are using an analog source and display there is no way around the limitations. Even an emulator will have minor issues I think due to the HDMI and the frame buffer that is required.

Oh, I didn't know, haven't read or watched any reviews yet and I'll got Super Nt in next week or two, as I live in Europe, so basically Byuu is wrong about that proper 60.09hz, yea?

[Sho]

Oh, I didn't know, haven't read or watched any reviews yet and I'll got Super Nt in next week or two, as I live in Europe, so basically Byuu is wrong about that proper 60.09hz, yea?

 

He's not wrong -- more so uninformed about the three different options.

[cacophony]

This review is pretty well done too:

 

The only complaint is the missed opportunity of allowing roms to be loaded from the sd card. Time to get on that kevtris!

[Sho]

This review is pretty well done too:

 

The only complaint is the missed opportunity of allowing roms to be loaded from the sd card. Time to get on that kevtris!

 

This Does Not Compute really deserves more subs than it currently has -- his attention to detail and concise speaking manner would be very pleasing for retro enthusiasts. And his videos add a level of polish that you would also see in My Life in Gaming, but with a more laid back feel.

 

Been following him for a while now. Great guy.

[Loukey]

Byuu has changed his "FPGAs aren't magic" article.

https://byuu.org/articles/fpgas-arent-magic/

 

I don't understand why these limitations should be treated as limitations, as is not a point for Super NT to be like a traditional software emulator, also, I'm pretty sure the proper 60.09hz can be done with external DAC.

I dont think Byuu is trying to say that emulation is better, I think he is just responding to all the this is so much better than emulation sentiment going around. I prefer the FPGA method myself, but they both certainly have their advantages and its not right to disparage emulation blindly.

[Namdor]

If Kevtris releases a jailbreak a valentines day release would be an awesome loving gesture. lol. If this thing only ever plays SNES games though I will be content. Lovely value for what it is out of the box.

[jamon1567]

 

You realize if they hire the shipping to an outside company the cost would be more than just shipping correct? I would expect it is worth it to them to hire the work externally.

 

Yes, I thought about that after I posted. Still seems high, but obviously it didn't bother me so much as to not place an order. It may still have been better for them to just adjust the price of the system to include whatever fees they had to pay a third party. The optics of a ~$40 shipping price just isn't good, as evidenced by many people complaining about it, and some even claiming they won't purchase it because of it.

[jamon1567]

I dont think Byuu is trying to say that emulation is better, I think he is just responding to all the this is so much better than emulation sentiment going around. I prefer the FPGA method myself, but they both certainly have their advantages and its not right to disparage emulation blindly.

 

In fairness, nobody is taking a dump on Higan, rather the other poorer alternatives out there. I mean, I've watched a couple videos now and read a few articles and the main thing people compare the Super NT to is a raspberry Pi setup, and for good reason. And those rigs aren't running Higan....

 

Edit: To expand on this a little bit, I kinda suspect he's more upset that someone like Taber (who is not an engineer) is the one making these claims, and that he's just a money grubbing jerk who isn't interested in helping the community, etc etc. And it came across in his original article. Which leads me to another point about gamers in general who seem to think they're always entitled to something for nothing and that commerce is evil. Like people flipping out about Battlefront II. And hey, I get it, microtransactions are BS, but everyone would throw a hissyfit if they were charged more than $60 for a game. It's interesting that somehow the price of a game hasn't gone up with inflation like literally everything else....and also interesting that back in the day, game prices were sometimes far in excess of that. Anyway, stepping down off my pedestal....

Edited February 7, 2018 by jamon1567

[F34R]

 

Please do let us know what you find. The shipping really is silly, but it ain't like anyone else is making these things so you just hold your nose I guess

 

Yep, exactly.

 

You realize if they hire the shipping to an outside company the cost would be more than just shipping correct? I would expect it is worth it to them to hire the work externally.

Well, you don't price something one way, then also charge for other aspects of the product costs in that way. It's ridiculous. I know one person that ordered TWO systems together, and his shipping was $38 for TWO, whereas mine was $37 for ONE. So, with that alone, I suspect price "gouging" on the shipping and if true it'll leave a sour taste in my mouth.

[DadsGlasses]

Plowing through the Super NT reviews on YouTube.

 

So far the only complaint that Ive seen has been from people that are upset about the transparent model being a bit more cloudy than the initial artist rendering.

 

I havent received mine yet. I ordered black. All I can say is that all models look awesome to me!

[Toth]

Yeah, they should really update the renderings. The Amazon listing for the controller looks especially bad (and is reflected in the review scores)

[DadsGlasses]

UPS just came to my house in the middle of an ice storm. I got outrageously excited and almost had another heart attack.

 

Turns out it was a jacket that my wife ordered.

 

Disappointment level: 10.

[cacophony]

From the Gamespot review:

 

Of note is the potential (as hinted by Analogue) for an option down the road for users to switch the Super Nt's FPGA--on-the-fly--to match different Super Nintendo hardware revisions.

 

Oh yes please

[Kismet]

This review is pretty well done too:

 

The only complaint is the missed opportunity of allowing roms to be loaded from the sd card. Time to get on that kevtris!

 

That's intentional. Just like the NT Mini.

 

No legitimate American product would include such features out of the box because of "MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd.", eg "Court unanimously concurred that Grokster could be liable for inducing copyright infringement"

 

There is a difference between "this thing only plays SNES carts out of the box" and "this thing doesn't need any snes carts, just steal them off the internet", type of notoriety a product gets once it's discovered that piracy is easy to do with it. As an example, there once was this cheap DVD player imported from china that could be put in RCE0 mode and thus people first bought it to play cheaper imported/counterfeit DVD's, and later people just made their own discs using pirated content which also worked on it. All the early DVD players up to that point wouldn't play recordable media. Likewise there are similar things like HDMI splitters which let you capture HDMI signals using any legitimate device key plugged into the other side, and there are also macrovision stripping tools that were simply called "signal stabilizers"

 

So generally you don't want to produce a product for sale in the US that will see more use as a piracy tool. It's completely above board to change the firmware (which is what people do to make DVD and Blueray drives RCE0) that adds features that were not originally offered, as long as the manufacturer doesn't adopt or endorse it over their own firmware. They included games in the distributed firmware because they've been legitimately licensed.

 

I expect, but don't care if/when it happens that anything produced for the NT Mini will get ported to the SuperNT, but if people are complaining that they can't play their pirated games on the device, they need to stop and think about what they are saying about themselves. Like the most obvious thing for a JB firmware to do first is a "CopyCart" mode as the only way to put the games on the device, and have it actually check for chip carts so it refuses the copy process for games that will be broken. Later JB firmware with other cores could use a hash database of which games will not work with the current version of the core. That should keep the complaints down to people who actually have the real carts, and those who know what they are getting into with a hacked/fan game not in the hash table.

 

Right now Nintendo can not claim damages from this device, because they at present aren't even producing enough SNES Mini's to meet demand.

Edited February 7, 2018 by Kismet

[Toth]

So you know how in that MLiG video when they talk about audio and how you have to enable a setting (Cartridge audio enable) for the SD2SNES and the Super Gameboy in order to hear all the audio from the games? Then later at 19:32 they pause the game and you can hear the white noise that the Super Gameboy is generating https://youtu.be/d_OW_t9RXEM?t=1172 Will that CPU bus noise happen when using an SD2SNES as well or is this only the Super Gameboy where you will hear that? Does the SD2SNES have CPU bus noise that will transfer through to the Super Nt? I assume not because the sounds are probably generated on the Super Nt but then I don't get why you'd need to mess with that setting when using the SD2SNES at all.

Edited February 7, 2018 by Toth

[F34R]

Firmware update when you get your system:

 

v3.9 notes:

- Fixed several formatting issues/optimized
- Added 8:7 mode as default
- Changed 'system region' to 'hardware'
- Added 'launch system timing' section- fixes issues with some Game Genie variants
- Added slider for LED brightness
- Fixed various small bugs

 

https://support.analogue.co/hc/en-us/articles/360000557452-Super-Nt-Firmware-Update-v3-9

[Kismet]

So you know how in that MLiG video when they talk about audio and how you have to enable a setting (Cartridge audio enable) for the SD2SNES and the Super Gameboy in order to hear all the audio from the games? Then later at 19:32 they pause the game and you can hear the white noise that the Super Gameboy is generating https://youtu.be/d_OW_t9RXEM?t=1172 Will that CPU bus noise happen when using an SD2SNES as well or is this only the Super Gameboy where you will hear that? Does the SD2SNES have CPU bus noise that will transfer through to the Super Nt? I assume not because the sounds are probably generated on the Super Nt but then I don't get why you'd need to mess with that setting when using the SD2SNES at all.

 

The actual SGB/SGB2 might have constantly running DAC's. The SD2SNES does not send anything to those pins unless the MSU-1 is engaged AFAIK.

[cfillak]

 

The actual SGB/SGB2 might have constantly running DAC's. The SD2SNES does not send anything to those pins unless the MSU-1 is engaged AFAIK.

I think he mentions it in the video, that if you plug headphones into an actual gameboy, its just as noisy if not more. I kind of want Analogue to produce a handheld based on the Gameboy/Gameboy Color where they could address this issue and output clean sound.

[kevtris]

 

Can this be a setting that can be implemented? I always turn my nt mini on from the back of the system. I hate having the flashing lights on all the time when the power is off so I have to get up each time to plug and unplug the adapter in anyways. would be nice if this was a setting that one could turn on or off. Thanks!

The power is basically directly connected to the port at all times that it is plugged in, so there's no way to disable it in the menu. Put a very small square of tape over the LED to cover it up if it bothers you. Power draw is very low and around 10-20ma so it is basically enough power to light an LED.

[Namdor]

Thanks Kevtris. Does it function the same way on the Super NT?

 

Also with the new features you have on the Super NT are you going to do a firmware upgrade to update some items on the NT Mini?

The power is basically directly connected to the port at all times that it is plugged in, so there's no way to disable it in the menu. Put a very small square of tape over the LED to cover it up if it bothers you. Power draw is very low and around 10-20ma so it is basically enough power to light an LED.

[dj_convoy]

If you need a Super NT review video today, go no further than the one My Life in Gaming posted, with input from mighty Kevtris himself. Kevtris, it looks like you did astounding work (again). In a weird way, I'm sort of glad about the old Chameleon drama, since that hipped me to you and your work.

[Nomenclature]

Kevtris layin' down the law in that MLiG video. The equivalent of Jay-Z rhyming "I'm the best". I love the line where he says he was disappointed in the complexity of the cpu, only taking a month and a half to decode. Also when he outlines exactly why fpga is not the same as emulation, and those who argue otherwise are simply hung up on semantics. Much kudos for doing things the way they're meant to be done! Can't wait to get mine.

 

Also the silence on if/when the cores drop is deafening, and it coincides with them ignoring all questions about making more NT Mini's. Seems pretty obvious the cores will be coming soon and they won't be making anymore NT Mini's as they'll be rendered relatively obsolete at that point anyway.

[Kismet]

Kevtris layin' down the law in that MLiG video. The equivalent of Jay-Z rhyming "I'm the best". I love the line where he says he was disappointed in the complexity of the cpu, only taking a month and a half to decode. Also when he outlines exactly why fpga is not the same as emulation, and those who argue otherwise are simply hung up on semantics. Much kudos for doing things the way they're meant to be done! Can't wait to get mine.

 

Also the silence on if/when the cores drop is deafening, and it coincides with them ignoring all questions about making more NT Mini's. Seems pretty obvious the cores will be coming soon and they won't be making anymore NT Mini's as they'll be rendered relatively obsolete at that point anyway.

 

I would not assume that. From an "amount of work required to do this" perspective, you'd only want to support other cores on one device, otherwise as additional Analogue consoles come out, the amount of work required to maintain it becomes exponential. I could be wrong and it's just something in a build pipeline kevtris has, but the NT Mini and the SuperNT aren't simply running a different size FPGA.

 

AS the FPGA is in the same family, it's more likely that Analogue stops making the existing NT Mini once they run out of Aluminum shells, and releases a plastic shell version, the logical thing to do would be to use the same FPGA/HDMI arrangement as the SuperNT then and thus all the cores would work on both.

[Smoke Monster]

Can cart audio be left enabled at all times, or should it be disabled when not in use?