FPGA Based Videogame System

[Jakir]

 

You're making a subjective statement about a feature that nobody will agree on. We're talking about scanlines in 2018, in 2024 we might be talking about replicating the exact aperture grille of a CRT.

All image filters are subjective. This news should not shock you.

 

Having said that however, those that subjectively enjoy pixilated images are either very strange or have never done a comparison and assume people only like scanlines because of nostalgia.

[teknomedic]

I saw this asked before, but it seems to have been missed... for us noobs... is there any reason to turn off "cartridge audio" vs just leaving it on? Will it mess up other games audio of left on and the cart doesn't use it?

[CZroe]

I saw this asked before, but it seems to have been missed... for us noobs... is there any reason to turn off "cartridge audio" vs just leaving it on? Will it mess up other games audio of left on and the cart doesn't use it?

Because it picks up analog audio there is a chance for it to pick up buzz or analog hiss or other interference. When a game doesn’t even use it, there’s no reason to keep digitizing the analog background noise. [emoji4]

 

Very few things use it. Super Game Boy/Super Game Boy 2 and MSU-1 enhances games on an SD2SNES are the biggest examples, and it’s clear why (MSU-1 streams audio from the cartridge; SGB has to feed the Game Boy’s audio back to the system somehow). Your average game will not use it.

Edited February 18, 2018 by CZroe

[Shadowgate]

As far as I know, it’s just my brother and I speculating other than a few who have mentioned it in their responses.

 

I’m just reading between the lines. Nintendo turned a blind eye to all the counterfeit controllers for so long that you could even buy USB versions at Fry’s Electronics. Suddenly, it became a problem with the NES Classic Edition. I personally witnessed multiple people and retail employees who were duped by them or unwittingly telling other people that they were the official controller. Read several more accounts online. Then, Nintendo registers controller design trademarks for the NES CE and SNES Classic Edition even before announcing the SNES CE. Soon after, 8bitdo discontinued every controller that was styled exactly like Nintendo’s (whether it had more buttons or not) and issued new designs with deliberately distinguishable colors/graphics.

 

When the Nt Mini stopped getting replenishments I was as confused as everyone else... until I went to update my 8bitdo NES30 and noticed that there was no mention of it on their site anywhere. Eventually, I realized that they retconned it to “N30” and purged the site of any pictures, making it very difficult to figure out that N30=NES30, especially with all the other “closely named but totally different” controllers, like NES30 Pro. They did similar for the SNES30.

 

Anyway, I recalled that the Analogue Nt Mini included the 8bitdo NES30 Retro Set with Retro Receiver. Since the controller is definitely discontinued, future productions of the Nt Mini will almost certainly have to include something else. I do expect future production runs or else they’d take it off the list of current products by now, I’d imagine. Perhaps they’re still deciding what to do in response to the Super Nt success.

 

Interesting... I wonder if it's really connected. It's all just so strange. All the hype of the Super NT is making people want the NT Mini so there must be a good reason it's not there for sale to take advantage of this. The darn thing is going for over $1000 on eBay. All the packaging and such is designed around including the 8bitDo controller so I guess it makes a sort of sense.

 

I guess there is just more profit to be made selling cheaper hardware to more people. I wonder if they will be moving away from the Boutique feel.

[Kismet]

All image filters are subjective. This news should not shock you.

 

Having said that however, those that subjectively enjoy pixilated images are either very strange or have never done a comparison and assume people only like scanlines because of nostalgia.

 

I've been through similar arguments about scanlines on other retro forums. You basically have four camps:

 

1. Software emulator is good enough, and whatever it defaults to is considered standard, even if it's inaccurate. These people have never played the original hardware and will not pick up on that.

2. Scanlines replicate the CRT experience, cue arguments about exactly which CRT is the gold standard.

3. Scanlines make things ugly, and it becomes a circular argument about how to make things more ugly-accurate, like have RF interference, or limited chroma/luma, etc

4. Turn all that off and just let me enjoy the game

 

I don't care for it, and when I see botched youtube videos, it's always a result of people uploading video without any understanding of what scanlines do, how it's compressed (you actually need noise in the video or you get banding when it gets converted from RGB to YUV420) and what the native resolution of the device is.

Edited February 18, 2018 by Kismet

[Jakir]

 

I've been through similar arguments about scanlines on other retro forums. You basically have four camps:

 

1. Software emulator is good enough, and whatever it defaults to is considered standard, even if it's inaccurate. These people have never played the original hardware and will not pick up on that.

2. Scanlines replicate the CRT experience, cue arguments about exactly which CRT is the gold standard.

3. Scanlines make things ugly, and it becomes a circular argument about how to make things more ugly-accurate, like have RF interference, or limited chroma/luma, etc

4. Turn all that off and just let me enjoy the game

 

I don't care for it, and when I see botched youtube videos, it's always a result of people uploading video without any understanding of what scanlines do, how it's compressed (you actually need noise in the video or you get banding when it gets converted from RGB to YUV420) and what the native resolution of the device is.

You've just made another completely irrelevant post. I've clearly defined my position as "I use scanlines because they improve the quality of the image" and not because of nostalgia or to intentionally make the image look worse for authenticity. If you have any argument against that the pictures I provided either prove my case or prove you have really bad taste. Those are the two camps you have to choose from. Now this conversation is over.

[jamon1567]

Alright thanks. I didn't see any topic's about this and this post has been going a bit fast after the super nt came out and not enough time to read it all.

I searched FX at least 6 or more pages didn't find anything.

 

Start from here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/242970-fpga-based-videogame-system/?p=3961632

 

Edit: rereading your post, it sounds like maybe you just went back a few pages and did a ctrl-f. You can actually search the entire thread if you scroll to the top of the page and type in your search criteria in the search box.

Edited February 18, 2018 by jamon1567

[CZroe]

 

I've been through similar arguments about scanlines on other retro forums. You basically have four camps:

 

1. Software emulator is good enough, and whatever it defaults to is considered standard, even if it's inaccurate. These people have never played the original hardware and will not pick up on that.

2. Scanlines replicate the CRT experience, cue arguments about exactly which CRT is the gold standard.

3. Scanlines make things ugly, and it becomes a circular argument about how to make things more ugly-accurate, like have RF interference, or limited chroma/luma, etc

4. Turn all that off and just let me enjoy the game

 

I don't care for it, and when I see botched youtube videos, it's always a result of people uploading video without any understanding of what scanlines do, how it's compressed (you actually need noise in the video or you get banding when it gets converted from RGB to YUV420) and what the native resolution of the device is.

Did you read my post on the subject? I don’t think it fits any of your categories.

[cacophony]

 

Interesting... I wonder if it's really connected. It's all just so strange. All the hype of the Super NT is making people want the NT Mini so there must be a good reason it's not there for sale to take advantage of this. The darn thing is going for over $1000 on eBay. All the packaging and such is designed around including the 8bitDo controller so I guess it makes a sort of sense.

 

I guess there is just more profit to be made selling cheaper hardware to more people. I wonder if they will be moving away from the Boutique feel.

 

The Nt Mini is going for > $1000 on eBay right now because it's the only hardware that runs the 18 8-bit cores that kevtris slaved over for 10 years. If those cores were ported to the Super Nt the price would almost certainly drop back down to reasonable levels.

 

Also, it only takes a small handful of motivated buyers to push a price up significantly on eBay given the small supply. That doesn't necessarily mean it makes financial sense for Analogue to do another run.

 

I have three theories for why Analogue isn't taking orders for the Nt Mini currently:

 

1. They're solely focusing on the Super Nt because of limited resources, but will get back to it shortly

2. With the success of the Super Nt and the plan to release a standalone DAC, they're going to introduce a lower cost NES fpga with a plastic shell and only hdmi out

3. With the success of the Super Nt they've decided to add standalone versions of various other 8-bit consoles to their future product road-map. If the Nt Mini is still produced it would harm the sales of those systems, but by discontinuing the Nt Mini and never porting those cores to any other system they've mostly solved this.

 

These are just speculative theories for now. We'll see what happens...

Edited February 18, 2018 by cacophony

[Andromeda Stardust]

Dunno, the 68K is probably the worst part. Other than that, I don't think it's as complex as the SNES was but I am sure it has lots of quirks and weird things too. I have done FM before and video so I don't think it will be too terrible or out of that out of the ordinary. The worse part is people wouldn't like if it didn't run sega CD or the 32x, which it most likely wouldn't do. It'd be stock genesis only. That's not to say it wouldn't have expansion for the cd, but it definitely would never support the 32X because it'd need to output analog RGB, then re-capture analog RGB from the 32x for its video overlay. So I suspect the bitching would be epic if I didn't support those things. I could be wrong and it has happened before :-)

Kevtris, I would LOVE an FPGA Genesis. Being a cartridge man myself, I never got into the CD or even the 32X addon. Both were failed systems although the CD system had some good games, a lot of early CD systems focused on CDDA sound or actual FMV sequences which IMO just destroy the authentic feel of playing a 16-bit console. I know a lot of people want this and that, but if it would increase the complexity or cost of the system to include such features, it would be better to just leave them out. Most gamers back in the day only grew up with the stock Genesis, even if they collected the addons further down the road. The Genesis would be great to use original carts and controllers plus SMS and Game Gear, even better if we got an Atari adapter for it!

 

But FPGA is so versatile it can become anything you want!

Yeah but a Genesis cart adapter and controller port dongles to transform an SNES into a Genesis would just look so wrong though. I'd still buy a standalone Genesis (Mega NT) even if the Super NT got a Genesis core ported to it.

[Sneakyturtleegg]

 

The Nt Mini is going for > $1000 on eBay right now because it's the only hardware that runs the 18 8-bit cores that kevtris slaved over for 10 years. If those cores were ported to the Super Nt the price would almost certainly drop back down to reasonable levels.

 

Also, it only takes a small handful of motivated buyers to push a price up significantly on eBay given the small supply. That doesn't necessarily mean it makes financial sense for Analogue to do another run.

 

I have three theories for why Analogue isn't taking orders for the Nt Mini currently:

 

1. They're solely focusing on the Super Nt because of limited resources, but will get back to it shortly

2. With the success of the Super Nt and the plan to introduce a standalone DAC, they're going to introduce a lower cost NES fpga with a plastic shell and only hdmi out

3. With the success of the Super Nt they've decided to add standalone versions of various 8-bit consoles to their future product road-map. If the Nt Mini is still produced it would harm the sales of those systems, but by discontinuing the Nt Mini and never porting those cores to any other system they've mostly solved this.

 

These are just speculative theories for now. We'll see what happens...

 

You could add a 4th theory - Analogue is done producing the NT Mini

[CZroe]

 

You could add a 4th theory - Analogue is done producing the NT Mini

Then they need to take it off the product page like they did with the original Analogue Nt. It’s still listed as simply “out of stock.” Edited February 18, 2018 by CZroe

[cacophony]

 

You could add a 4th theory - Analogue is done producing the NT Mini

 

Yeah, good point:

 

4. Analogue feels their isn't enough market for NES fpga systems anymore to warrant any kind of additional production

[cacophony]

Then they need to take it off the product page like they did with the original Analogue Nt. It’s still listed as simply “out of stock.”

 

They had the real gold version of the original NT on their website for an entire year or more after it was sold out, but that was probably more about the marketing.

[Kismet]

You've just made another completely irrelevant post. I've clearly defined my position as "I use scanlines because they improve the quality of the image" and not because of nostalgia or to intentionally make the image look worse for authenticity. If you have any argument against that the pictures I provided either prove my case or prove you have really bad taste. Those are the two camps you have to choose from. Now this conversation is over.

 

And I'm saying people get the wrong idea about what scanlines do.

 

This is MY CRT:

 

This is MY 4K without scanlines:

 

This is the same 4K with Hybrid scanlines:

 

This is the same 4K with Normal scanlines:

 

Subjectively, it looks better without scanlines.

[CZroe]

 

And I'm saying people get the wrong idea about what scanlines do.

 

This is MY CRT:

 

This is MY 4K without scanlines:

 

This is the same 4K with Hybrid scanlines:

 

This is the same 4K with Normal scanlines:

 

Subjectively, it looks better without scanlines.

It’s very obvious in your pictures that you have a non-integer scale making uneven scanlines. Scanlines are completely useless like that. An integer scale should be considered a prerequisite. They aren’t there for the people that are just going to turn it on without first trying to get an integer scale. The people who do that are going to have the same reaction as you and decide that they don’t like them with no concept of what they are truly for.

 

They are there for the people who actually care about video quality. Yes, some people who latch on for nostalgia, but that isn’t who the feature is really for.

Edited February 18, 2018 by CZroe

[bozo55]

 

And I'm saying people get the wrong idea about what scanlines do.

 

This is MY CRT:

 

This is MY 4K without scanlines:

 

 

This is the same 4K with Hybrid scanlines:

 

 

This is the same 4K with Normal scanlines:

 

 

Subjectively, it looks better without scanlines.

 

 

I'll agree, the scanlines look bad on your setup. On mine they look great and I much prefer it over no scanlines.

 

I'm using 720p60 with regular scanlines, 255 depth. I have a Sony W950B 1080p display running in Impulse mode and I prefer it over playing on my CRTs.

[SegaSnatcher]

 

The Nt Mini is going for > $1000 on eBay right now because it's the only hardware that runs the 18 8-bit cores that kevtris slaved over for 10 years. If those cores were ported to the Super Nt the price would almost certainly drop back down to reasonable levels.

 

Also, it only takes a small handful of motivated buyers to push a price up significantly on eBay given the small supply. That doesn't necessarily mean it makes financial sense for Analogue to do another run.

 

I have three theories for why Analogue isn't taking orders for the Nt Mini currently:

 

1. They're solely focusing on the Super Nt because of limited resources, but will get back to it shortly

2. With the success of the Super Nt and the plan to release a standalone DAC, they're going to introduce a lower cost NES fpga with a plastic shell and only hdmi out

3. With the success of the Super Nt they've decided to add standalone versions of various other 8-bit consoles to their future product road-map. If the Nt Mini is still produced it would harm the sales of those systems, but by discontinuing the Nt Mini and never porting those cores to any other system they've mostly solved this.

 

These are just speculative theories for now. We'll see what happens...

1. Agreed

 

2. A lower cost NT Mini with Plastic Shell and HDMI only would be a smart move. They should also use the same Cyclone V that is in the Super NT for more features like Interpolation.

 

3. I don't believe Analogue sees a big enough market to make standalone consoles for anything older than NES. I mean lets be honest here, how many people would really be willing to spend $189.99 for a FPGA Colecovision?

[Kismet]

1. Agreed

 

2. A lower cost NT Mini with Plastic Shell and HDMI only would be a smart move. They should also use the same Cyclone V that is in the Super NT for more features like Interpolation.

 

3. I don't believe Analogue sees a big enough market to make standalone consoles for anything older than NES. I mean lets be honest here, how many people would really be willing to spend $189.99 for a FPGA Colecovision?

 

I doubt anyone would be willing to spend $189.99 on anything that has no means of buying new games for it. That's the conundrum of building things with the cartridge slot.

 

Nintendo has the ROM files for every game ever made for their system. They could even build their own multicart with the exact same games as the Mini's and licence it for use on the Analogue systems, but they won't because they have been resistant to even doing mobile games. "Not our hardware = lawsuit"

 

That said, Capcom, Sega (who doesn't produce SNES/NES games, but likely would do this with a Sega system), Konami, Square-Enix and several other publishers that are still in business would love to cut Nintendo out of the virtual console business, and the Analogue NT Mini and Analogue Super NT let's them do that. Capcom in fact did that... https://www.polygon.com/2017/8/30/16230658/street-fighter-2-snes-cartridge-rerelease-capcom-iam8bit

 

edit: Read the description https://store.iam8bit.com/products/street-fighter-ii-30th-anniversary-edition

 

WARNING: Use of this reproduction game cartridge (the “Product”) on the SNES gaming hardware may cause the SNES console to overheat or catch fire. The SNES hardware is deemed a vintage collectible, so please exercise extreme caution when using the Product and make sure there is fire extinguishment equipment nearby. Use of the Product is at the sole risk of the user.

Edited February 18, 2018 by Kismet

[Shadowgate]

The people on the fence about scan lines make sure you try them for yourselves at the proper scaling. Also do not watch videos and look at screenshots to form your opinion. They look awful in video and that's the primary reason the lets play crowd avoids them in videos.

 

Try the following settings on the Super NT. These are from another poster.

Resolution: 1080p60
Width: 1600
Height: 1200

 

Hyrbrid and normal scan lines look pretty good at this resolution. Use the 240p test suite to dial in the vertical position.

 

I also really like the following 720p settings. It makes the image a bit softer on my tv but it's quite nice.

768
48
720
38

Hybrid scanlines at 200.

[CZroe]

The people on the fence about scan lines make sure you try them for yourselves at the proper scaling. Also do not watch videos and look at screenshots to form your opinion. They look awful in video and that's the primary reason the lets play crowd avoids them in videos.

 

Try the following settings on the Super NT. These are from another poster.

Resolution: 1080p60

Width: 1600

Height: 1200

 

Hyrbrid and normal scan lines look pretty good at this resolution. Use the 240p test suite to dial in the vertical position.

 

I also really like the following 720p settings. It makes the image a bit softer on my tv but it's quite nice.

768

48

720

38

Hybrid scanlines at 200.

I’m also using 1600x1200 on 1080p, but that STILL isn’t going to work on most TVs without figuring out how to disable simulated overscan. This setting is non-existent on many sets and extremely obfuscated on most others, requiring you to do things like label an input “PC.” When it is a menu option it can be called many things, like 1:1, JustScan, Full Pixel, etc.

 

I wish it was as simple as picking the same setting for any 1080p set or the same settings for any 4K set or whatever, but it’s not. My brother and I have to get the specific TV model for all of my UltraHDMI buyers and walk them through the settings for an integer scale after pulling up the manual (sometimes, the service manual). Luckily, my twin brother spent almost 14 years working at the cable company helping with home theater setups and he’s very practiced at guiding people through the phone on models he’s never directly handled.

Edited February 18, 2018 by CZroe

[SegaSnatcher]

I’m also using 1600x1200 on 1080p, but that STILL isn’t going to work on most TVs without figuring out how to disable simulated overscan. This setting in non-existent on many sets and extremely obfuscated in most other, requiring you to do thinks like label an input “PC.” When it is a menu option it can be called many things, like 1:1, JustScan, Full Pixel, etc.

 

I wish it was as simple as picking the same setting for any 1080p set or the same settings for any 4K set or whatever, but it’s not. My brother and I have to get the specific TV model for all of my UltraHDMI buyers and walk them through the settings for an integer scale after pulling up the manual (sometimes, the service manual). Luckily, my twin brother spent almost 14 years working at the cable company helping with home theater setups and he’s very practiced at guiding people through the phone on models he’s never directly handled.

Most modern TVs offer a 0% overscan setting. Actually, I don't know of any recent HDTVs that force overscan.

[CZroe]

That said, Capcom, Sega (who doesn't produce SNES/NES games, but likely would do this with a Sega system), Konami, Square-Enix and several other publishers that are still in business would love to cut Nintendo out of the virtual console business, and the Analogue NT Mini and Analogue Super NT let's them do that. Capcom in fact did that... https://www.polygon.com/2017/8/30/16230658/street-fighter-2-snes-cartridge-rerelease-capcom-iam8bit

 

edit: Read the description https://store.iam8bit.com/products/street-fighter-ii-30th-anniversary-edition

 

WARNING: Use of this reproduction game cartridge (the “Product”) on the SNES gaming hardware may cause the SNES console to overheat or catch fire. The SNES hardware is deemed a vintage collectible, so please exercise extreme caution when using the Product and make sure there is fire extinguishment equipment nearby. Use of the Product is at the sole risk of the user.

There’s a lot to that, actually. Shortly before this launched, Rene from dbElectronics, wrote an article regarding a disturbing industry trend of using modern 3.3v logic in 5v logic retro hardware without proper level translation. It usually works, but there were some potential issues.

 

It really stirred things up though. It took aim at a lot of popular products and polarized fans. It got a lot of people asking technical questions that the Iam8bit guys weren’t prepared to answer, so they just threw up that tongue-in-cheek disclaimer. In the end, their repro boards were from Infinite NES Lives, which were properly made with correct voltage logic level translation.

 

They really should have removed that by now.

 

Anyway, here’s the article that started it all:

https://db-electronics.ca/2017/07/05/the-dangers-of-3-3v-flash-in-retro-consoles/

Edited February 18, 2018 by CZroe

[CZroe]

Most modern TVs offer a 0% overscan setting. Actually, I don't know of any recent HDTVs that force overscan.

I deal with them daily in my line of work. Even some of the latest and highest end televisions obfuscate the setting in ways like I described. I’d almost say that it’s the bane of my existence... and I’d only be exaggerating a little bit. [emoji6]

 

If anything, it’s just as prevalent or more prevalent today. Just walked a Hi-Def NES buyer through it on his fancy 4K display and each step toward an integer scale had him increasingly more impressed. We were literally counting the number of rows used to render each NES pixel to determine what was going on with each step.

 

My $5,000 XBR LCD doesn’t hide the option but, even then, most people would have no idea what the setting means. It doesn’t say “Overscan simulation: [ON / OFF]” or anything like that and no two manufacturers use the same terminology.

Edited February 18, 2018 by CZroe

[Keatah]

Pardon my ignorance here, but if the Super Nt only outputs a signal in full-range RGB, what happens if my TV only supports limited range?

 

TV will approximate, pick the next closest color. Like color banding.