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FPGA Based Videogame System


kevtris

Interest in an FPGA Videogame System  

682 members have voted

  1. 1. I would pay....

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

  3. 3. Games Should Run From...

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


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I bought some wired NES controllers on eBay (for my incoming NT Mini) and now I'm wondering how difficult it is to find a working Zapper light gun. Do Zappers have a high failure rate? Is it a throw of the dice to purchase a Zapper on eBay?

You can get them from a local gamestore or pawnshop for 5-10. I have a bunch and have never come across a broken one. You should be safe.

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Hmm so the NT mini uses a Cyclone V E - 5CEBA2U15C8N (25K LE) or about $40. The Z3K suggested so far needs 49K LE (which would be about $68.)

 

The RetroUSB AVS uses a Xilinx Spartan-6 XC6SLX9 (9K LE, and costs about $20)

 

That still has me wondering what the BOM (Bill of Materials) on the NT Mini is.

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I bought some wired NES controllers on eBay (for my incoming NT Mini) and now I'm wondering how difficult it is to find a working Zapper light gun. Do Zappers have a high failure rate? Is it a throw of the dice to purchase a Zapper on eBay?

They are highly reliable in my experience. You only need a "tube" TV for it to work. If someone claims their zapper doesn't work, it's probably a flat panel TV that's to blame.

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Hmm so the NT mini uses a Cyclone V E - 5CEBA2U15C8N (25K LE) or about $40. The Z3K suggested so far needs 49K LE (which would be about $68.)

 

I'd like to see that doubled for future use. As emulator accuracy improves and new features are thought of, it will come in handy. So what if it adds another $50 or $75. It'll be worth every damned dollar. In 5 years come back and visit this post.

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damn, I didn't think that stupid yellow box would be on my head the whole time. I'm a noob. lol

LOL! Like the Mario [?] blocks... :rolling:

 

Overall the RGB review was excellent. Fully comprehensive and I didn't have to fast forward through any of it. I am also concerned about the expense of the milled aluminum billet for a case. Surely laser-cut acrylic or even wood 8) would have been cheaper and a more economical option. I'd love a wood option for the Zimba3000. Just sayin' 8)

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Are the board dimensions for Z3K set in stone yet? I probably want to make my own case so it integrates flawlessly into the space lounge. Now is not to early to start because I take my time on such things and they can go through many iterations before I'm totally satisfied for the long term.

Edited by Keatah
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They are highly reliable in my experience. You only need a "tube" TV for it to work. If someone claims their zapper doesn't work, it's probably a flat panel TV that's to blame.

I have a CRT television in my bedroom, my ColecoVision is hooked up to it. The picture is really beautiful, with nice colors, but it only takes RF. I hope there's an option out there that will allow me to connect the NT Mini to this CRT via the RGB connector. I haven't started looking for that yet, mostly because I have a dedicated HDMI screen waiting for the NT Mini. But I'd like to play Duck Hunt and other Zapper games on the CRT eventually, just for kicks. :)

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Kevtris, regarding the jailbreak I watched your interview with Bob last night and it brought a few questions to mind. You were wondering how to make an adapter for game boy games. Would it be possible to make an adapter that a super game boy could connect to and read the game through that device?

 

Also I've heard a few people wonder if pc-engine/tg-16 could be run through the NT mini because even though marketed as a 16 bit system they have heard it to be a 8bit system.

 

I hope these are not dumb questions and thanks as always.

 

Super excited for lightgun support being added to SMS possibly due to Bob asking for zapper support!

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I have a CRT television in my bedroom, my ColecoVision is hooked up to it. The picture is really beautiful, with nice colors, but it only takes RF. I hope there's an option out there that will allow me to connect the NT Mini to this CRT via the RGB connector. I haven't started looking for that yet, mostly because I have a dedicated HDMI screen waiting for the NT Mini. But I'd like to play Duck Hunt and other Zapper games on the CRT eventually, just for kicks. :)

You need an RF modulator. It should be possible to pick one up for cheap somewhere.

https://www.amazon.com/RCA-Compact-RF-Modulator-CRF907R/dp/B0014KKV7W

https://www.walmart.com/ip/RCA-CRF907-Compact-RF-Modulator/19415715

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/insignia-rf-modulator-black/4947028.p?id=1219105378234

 

They take in composite (and sometimes Svideo) and output RF over NTSC channel 3 or 4. RGB won't work as you'll need good old fashioned composite. I'm not sure what pin on the Dsub you need to use. Radioshack sells Dsubs with the solder cups. You could easily wire an RCA cable to a male plug and cram it inside a hood. I think it would have been preferable to provide a composite RCA plug in addition to the composite L/R plugs for people who can't fashion their own Dsub adapters but he wanted an all-in-1 VGA connector that really isn't VGA...

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Kevtris, regarding the jailbreak I watched your interview with Bob last night and it brought a few questions to mind. You were wondering how to make an adapter for game boy games. Would it be possible to make an adapter that a super game boy could connect to and read the game through that device?

 

The Super Gameboy is not a pin adapter, it's a complete Gameboy in a cartridge form factor, and the GameBoy cartridge is not directly exposed to the Super Nintendo.

 

It might be theoretically possible to build a SNES cart adapter and use the Super Gameboy with an NT Mini by trying to trick the SGB into initializing the Game Boy hardware without having a SNES on the other end of the cartridge slot (since the NT Mini can't handle a SNES), but that'd be a ton of useless work considering Kevtris already has a working Game Boy FPGA core.

 

There are clearly new clone GB/GBC/GBA cartridge sockets available since there are a ton of cart dumpers and clone consoles (like the GB Boy Colour) on the market. They used to be available in the US from MCM Electronics (part number 83-2285), but the Chinese must be getting them from somewhere too.

EDIT: There's also a huge number of lots of 30 used GBA connectors on aliexpress for as low as US$2.34 per connector. I really doubt they have ~2.9 million connectors available like their listing says they do, but they probably still have a lot.

Edited by Guspaz
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Good point on the game boy knock off adapters. I just excited about playing game boy games. As far as the tg16 thing it was brought up by phonedork in that same video but it's not on Kevin's list so I figured it was a no but still hoping.

 

He has my money day 1 for the Z3K

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Hmmm... These all require extra power, so that's three power supplies required (NT Mini, TV, and RF adaptor). Oh well, I guess this can't be helped. I'll drop by BestBuy and other similar places to try to get one of these gizmos. Thanks for the info!

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Hmmm... These all require extra power, so that's three power supplies required (NT Mini, TV, and RF adaptor). Oh well, I guess this can't be helped. I'll drop by BestBuy and other similar places to try to get one of these gizmos. Thanks for the info!

Surge strip. Nearly everyone has more gizmos than power outlets these days...

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Firstly, let me just say that this is a big ask and would probably require years of dev time, but I think it would be the hands down ultimate in retro gaming and while probably closer to the thousand dollar range it would be incredibly worth it because even if someone was only interested in 2 or 3 of the systems then they would break even, but if they use more than that it would be hundreds in savings.

Anyways, what I would like is: Every non-hdmi system in one console without emulation.
We're talking all of sega (Master System, Genesis, 32x, CD, Saturn, Dreamcast, Gamegear), all of Atari (2600, 5200, 7800, Lynx, Jaguar), most of Nintendo (nes, snes, n64, gc, wii, gb, gbc, gba), NeoGeo & NGPC, TG16 & TGCD, PS1, PS2, PSP, Wonderswan, and the original xbox.

To save costs some immediate features to cut down on could be: Only a sd card reader included and maybe a port of some kind for people that want to plug in extensions to play physical games. And built in bluetooth for running the wii would hopefully mean you could do some kind of internal workaround where classic consoles could accept bluetooth controller input because the console would accept the signal and then send the hardware the inputs the systems were expecting. Also support for the bliss box for people that want to use wired controllers would be huge. This way you could completely avoid any cartridge connectors or controller ports except 1 for the cartridge connector addons (so people only pay for the ones they want) and a usb controller input for the bliss box (or any other adapter people prefer, but seriously get a blissbox) and that should reduce a lot of the costs.

Features I would like:
Bluetooth support (needed for Wii)
Ethernet port
Bliss box compatibility
2tb sd card compatibility
nas (network attached storage) compatibility (requiring specific folder structures to make this work would be fine)
4k @60fps hdmi 2.0 support for 0 lag upscaling would be my wetdream if you could pull it off


I'm just going to assume you can't pull off native rendering in 4k @60fps and 1080p is the max that would work. That means each console you could replicate in this system would still be rendering with improved graphics not supported by the console itself, many of which hdmi mods don't even exist for and almost none of which have 0 lag native rendering increases to 1080p... boom hundreds of dollars saved right there alone. Now factor in the fact you can pull backups off a sd card, usb drive, or nas and how much everdrives and optical drive emulators cost (and how rarely they go up for sale, good friggen luck trying to get a psio) And if people are willing to spend ~$200 to have a hdmi mod, drop another $500 on a xrgb mini, and spend $100-$200 on an everdrive, not to mention the cost of the console itself to have a SINGLE CONSOLE work like this (with 1-2 frames of lag added from the mini, and screen blackouts every time the resolution changes) and I think a $1,000-$1,200 price tag is completely justified to high end enthusiasts for an all in one product.

Edited by Wolf_
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I've done some testing with the Master System Core and it seems that the FM sound will not play for Wonderboy III Dragon's Trap even if I load the Japanese BIOS or use the FM Hack. From what I've read the Master System needs the region of the console to be Japan. I don't know if just having the correct BIOS works. Is there a setting that can be added so the FM sound works for this game or is there a setting I'm already missing?

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You're forgetting consoles like the Apple II, C64, Vic-20, Vectrex, Astrocade, TRS-80 I, II, III, and IV, Coco1, Coco2, Coco3, Amiga 500/1000/2000, Atari ST series, Intellivision, and a whole hella lot more.

I didn't want to just list off a hundred names so I kept it down to the big sellers that would attract the most customers. Besides if it can handle the more advanced systems then throwing those in slowly at a later date should be possible.

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Are the board dimensions for Z3K set in stone yet? I probably want to make my own case so it integrates flawlessly into the space lounge. Now is not to early to start because I take my time on such things and they can go through many iterations before I'm totally satisfied for the long term.

no they are not. I haven't even designed a second pcb for it since I have been busy on the nt mini and paid projects.

 

Kevtris, regarding the jailbreak I watched your interview with Bob last night and it brought a few questions to mind. You were wondering how to make an adapter for game boy games. Would it be possible to make an adapter that a super game boy could connect to and read the game through that device?

 

Also I've heard a few people wonder if pc-engine/tg-16 could be run through the NT mini because even though marketed as a 16 bit system they have heard it to be a 8bit system.

 

I hope these are not dumb questions and thanks as always.

 

Super excited for lightgun support being added to SMS possibly due to Bob asking for zapper support!

the super gameboy is a SNES cart and is not a pin converter. also the SNES connector is just as custom as the GB one.

 

I've done some testing with the Master System Core and it seems that the FM sound will not play for Wonderboy III Dragon's Trap even if I load the Japanese BIOS or use the FM Hack. From what I've read the Master System needs the region of the console to be Japan. I don't know if just having the correct BIOS works. Is there a setting that can be added so the FM sound works for this game or is there a setting I'm already missing?

Did you uncheck the "Export" box in the core settings? if so I will look into it if you still can't get it to work.

 

You're forgetting consoles like the Apple II, C64, Vic-20, Vectrex, Astrocade, TRS-80 I, II, III, and IV, Coco1, Coco2, Coco3, Amiga 500/1000/2000, Atari ST series, Intellivision, and a whole hella lot more.

I have Intellivision. I have intentionally skipped over computers so far because of a lack of a keyboard and disk drive. I do have an almost complete C64 core though, so it's not really a lack of hardware capability, but a lack of peripherals and time to implement it all. After I get all my existing cores ported over to the mini (which is a lot harder than it normally would be because I am modernizing them all at the same time) I will re-evaluate things and figure out where I will go from there. I want to keep making cores.

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Did you uncheck the "Export" box in the core settings? if so I will look into it if you still can't get it to work.

I tried as many combinations as possible including the "Export" box and the FM still didn't work. I did notice when I selectws the "Export" Box, the title screen shows the US title screen "Wonder Boy III", otherwise it would default to the Japanese title screen "Monster World II"

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I tried as many combinations as possible including the "Export" box and the FM still didn't work. I did notice when I selectws the "Export" Box, the title screen shows the US title screen "Wonder Boy III", otherwise it would default to the Japanese title screen "Monster World II"

So to get FM sound to work on master system games, you need to have the japanese bios loaded?

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Minor question but something I have been curious about. When using the latest firmware and switching to the Cores menu I get a screen that says "Init File System (Y) Try Again (B) Cancel" that flashes briefly onscreen for like a quarter of a second. I generally ignore it because it doesn't seem to cause any obvious side effects, but from watching other YouTube videos it doesn't seem to appear for them. Anyone else see this on their machine, and have an idea what might be causing it?

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