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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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Adding yet another box. Why not use the original device then?

 

The ideal setup for most people is you plug your HDMI devices straight into the TV, and if you have a home theater, the TV routes that audio to the theater setup. If you can replace 30 consoles, computers, and hdmi switcher/upscaler/splitters with one box, that is the right solution. However the TV and Monitor manufacturers don't care about legacy support, so anything you can do to reduce latency, including bypassing the upscaler is beneficial.

 

If you have kids and you don't want them wrecking your classic computer/console equipment, that is where you hand them the Z3K and an after-market wireless SNES controller so they don't send the console flying when they throw the controller.

 

I'll use an analogy here. Those "Kodi" devices people are selling on nvidia shield (also $200) can do a lot of stuff, including playback of HD video, but it has no native games for it. You're not going to buy it just to get the same experience you get on the Retron5 ($160) or even a desktop pc. These are expensive gadgets that do everything poorly or just passible. kevtris took a Retron5 apart and noted that it had over 140ms of latency with the wired controller. If I want a passable experience, I'll just play the emulated console or computer, on my $2000 PC with my Xbox 360 controller.

 

I'm not putting down the MiST, I am however saying that device falls way too short of a zero-latency HDMI solution that you would want for playing games. It's good enough if you are playing on CRT VGA screen. That FPGA computer is capable of good output, but only with a CRT. If you have to run it through an upscaler then you're back to the original question of why not just use the original hardware with an upscaler.

I totally agree from an ease of use standpoint. I'm just saying we have options for passing VGA without lag. The devices I mentioned earlier are not upscalers. "Line multiplier" is perhaps a better term. Calling the OSSC an upscaler is like calling the Nt mini an emulator. But back to ease of use, not everyone wants to take apart their console and solder a zillion tiny wires to the motherboard for HDMI. Video mods like that are too difficult for most people. That's why the Nt mini exists and is such a great option for modern retro gamers. :-)

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Hi Kevtris. I've been following this thread for a while, but I don't recall seeing any comments of yours in which you mentioned even a ballpark release date for the Zimba 3000. Do you have a rough idea on what year it'll come out? Also, is the PC Engine CD possible on the Zimba?

 

Thanks, looking forward to reading more about what's going on with the Zimba and the NT Mini. Take care.

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If we're nitpicking, the 15pin VGA connector is DE-15, while the 15-pin gameport/famicom/neogeo port is DA-15

 

As for the naming scheme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-subminiature

Basically, anything called "DB" is actually wrong from the original naming scheme because the second letter is the shell size. So the technically correct name for VGA is DE-15. The connectors we all call DB-9 are actually supposed to be DE-9.

Source Wikipedia:

440px-DSubminiatures.svg.png

Basically, only the DB-25 connector is the right naming scheme.

 

 

I votes for the 37 pin connector for ultimate multiplayer mayhem and expandability! :grin:

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[...]

 

Looking at MAME, there's a data file for every chip on the motherboard for each game. When looking at the literally thousands of games produced all with seemingly unique hardware, from a modular perspective, there's relatively few unique chips between them, and building a motherboard piecewise from FPGA implementations of each chip would be relatively straightforward.

 

[...]

Do you have any numbers, Kosmic? I wonder how many chips would have to be implemented to cover at least popular 8-bit and 16-bit arcade publishers, i.e. Konami, Capcom, Sega, etc. If kevtris will decide at some point to work on arcade machines, he could join forces with, for instance, the MAME project (to get arcade boards + documentation -- the PCBs aren't cheap...), I guess they also might be interested in good FPGA arcade implementations. BTW, there was this project called MameVHDL (archived link) whose goal was "generating electronic schematics from M.A.M.E. into VHDL", but it does not seem to be active any more.

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yes it is, at least for NES. PAL is a lot more hit or miss on my other cores, because I don't have any PAL systems to test/RE at the time. The 2600 core for example is NTSC only but it runs PAL games; I only have one oscillator and not enough PLLs so I can't output PAL 2600 video, but it does output 50fps NTSC (and I guess the RGB is PAL rate so you can use that). Frame buffer systems (gameboy, etc) will/can output PAL just fine and I will add it to GB since it's pretty easy, I just forgot before I released it.

 

[...]

Do you need a whole PAL console for testing? Or is it enough if someone will send you PAL chips for these consoles from Europe (smaller package)?

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Do you have any numbers, Kosmic? I wonder how many chips would have to be implemented to cover at least popular 8-bit and 16-bit arcade publishers, i.e. Konami, Capcom, Sega, etc. If kevtris will decide at some point to work on arcade machines, he could join forces with, for instance, the MAME project (to get arcade boards + documentation -- the PCBs aren't cheap...), I guess they also might be interested in good FPGA arcade implementations. BTW, there was this project called MameVHDL (archived link) whose goal was "generating electronic schematics from M.A.M.E. into VHDL", but it does not seem to be active any more.

I think the main obstacle for doing arcade systems in FPGA is the lack of being able to sacrifice a PCB to get the exact timing mechanics from the chips. Some chips like the 6502 and Z80 are closer to off-the-shelf models because the arcade boards are not produced in large quantities (other than hardware which are essentially the console/computer hardware with a different boot configuration or clock speed.) But you still have custom chips on 8-bit and 16-bit systems.

 

So in theory, at least, some of the less complicated 8-bit/16-bit games could be done on the Z3K just by virtue of the game being identical to the home-console/computer version save for the coin interface (eg Puzzle Bobble/Bust-a-Move comes to mind) but I think trying to do these in FPGA would require a more open platform where the CPU/GPU/APU cores already done can be wired correctly to the ROM's used. It would still require reverse engineering the actual arcade boards, but I doubt any single person can do it except for some standardized boards like the Sega/Taito/Konami/Namco boards that had multiple games used on otherwise identical PCB's

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Just watched the Gamerster81 review and he mentioned that it took 10 minutes to load the list of roms for NES:

 

 

It looks like he's using the widely used smokemonster pack, which admittedly is quite large (~8000 files distributed among ~100 folders). It's intended for the Everdrive so no folder has more than 243 roms.

 

Can anyone else confirm this issue or know of a workaround to speed things up?

Edited by cacophony
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  • For my $200?

8 & 16 Bit Era.

SD card/Memory stick as many others have said, that's all it really needs.

If you can do up to Jag and N64 so much the better, but don't make it so advanced it becomes an XM...

Ditto on XM and SGM features. Those games need to be playable...

As for case? Pick something simple off the shelf. Maybe make it fit in a small Pelican case so it travels well and has space inside to store the controller and power brick.

Forget any computers. Just stick to console games for the beginning, but maybe include the Atari 8-bit and C64 emulation since they already exist.

Make it at least USB keyboard compatible for those games which use one.

Atari 9 pin controller ports are a must have, but USB for the rest...

Edited by Zonie
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Just watched the Gamerster81 review and he mentioned that it took 10 minutes to load the list of roms for NES:

 

I have about 2,700 files in my NES directory alone. I started off using a flat folder structure, and it was taking over 4 minutes to load the entire directory, but once I nested them into 27 sub folders my seek time went down dramatically and I want to say its less than a minute if the NES core is loaded and does not need to be flashed. So I am not sure why its taking so long to load for him unless he is also counting the "flashing" of the FPGA (i.e. he just switched system cores), or he is grossly exaggerating.

Edited by roaringchicken
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Just watched the Gamerster81 review and he mentioned that it took 10 minutes to load the list of roms for NES:

 

*snip*

 

It looks like he's using the widely used smokemonster pack, which admittedly is quite large (~8000 files distributed among ~100 folders). It's intended for the Everdrive so no folder has more than 243 roms.

 

Can anyone else confirm this issue or know of a workaround to speed things up?

Dividing it up into subdirectories is enough to keep the load times quick for me(with smokemonster's set you don't even have to do anything, just extract it straight to the NES folder on the sdcard) . Have definitely not experienced 10 minute load times. Worst was maybe 15 seconds?

 

EDIT: If we're including core load times for things like MMC5 games, then maybe more like 40 seconds at the worst. I don't find it a big deal, there aren't many games that require this and the fact that it can play these complex mappers at all is a plus in my book...

Edited by rezb1t
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I have about 2,700 files in my NES directory alone. I started off using a flat folder structure, and it was taking over 4 minutes to load the entire directory, but once I nested them into 27 sub folders my seek time went down dramatically and I want to say its less than a minute if the NES core is loaded and does not need to be flashed. So I am not sure why its taking so long to load for him unless he is also counting the "flashing" of the FPGA (i.e. he just switched system cores), or he is grossly exaggerating.

I suggest 150-200 files per directory. There is a 32K heap that filenames are stored into, so the number of files it can work with varies depending on the length of the filenames. It then sorts the list, which if it's a very large list can take awhile. It gets kind of unwieldy if you have more than a couple hundred anyways.

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Just watched the Gamerster81 review and he mentioned that it took 10 minutes to load the list of roms for NES:

 

 

It looks like he's using the widely used smokemonster pack, which admittedly is quite large (~8000 files distributed among ~100 folders). It's intended for the Everdrive so no folder has more than 243 roms.

 

Can anyone else confirm this issue or know of a workaround to speed things up?

I use smoke monster no issue. He must have changed something within the standard format. I have not had a single issue on official or jailbreak firmware.

Edited by Namdor
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I suggest 150-200 files per directory. There is a 32K heap that filenames are stored into, so the number of files it can work with varies depending on the length of the filenames. It then sorts the list, which if it's a very large list can take awhile. It gets kind of unwieldy if you have more than a couple hundred anyways.

Even the Everdrives for the smaller 8 bits cheat. The ones that do sort only use the first 5-6 char or something like that (so with short 8.3 file names it's a little of a mess), for the ones that do not sort Krikzz explicitly states to use a filesorter or replace all the files at once via Windows that for some reason (premature optimization?) will keep them sorted during the copy .... instead of adding, delete and recopy the whole shebang within each directory ... easy, quick and relatively effective. I think even the 16bits EDs do cheat.

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Even the Everdrives for the smaller 8 bits cheat. The ones that do sort only use the first 5-6 char or something like that (so with short 8.3 file names it's a little of a mess), for the ones that do not sort Krikzz explicitly states to use a filesorter or replace all the files at once via Windows that for some reason (premature optimization?) will keep them sorted during the copy .... instead of adding, delete and recopy the whole shebang within each directory ... easy, quick and relatively effective. I think even the 16bits EDs do cheat.

Yeah I thought about it. I do a "proper" sort though. It is a quicksort vs. something sillier like a bubble sort. I didn't want to cheat :-)

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Just watched the Gamerster81 review and he mentioned that it took 10 minutes to load the list of roms for NES:

 

 

It looks like he's using the widely used smokemonster pack, which admittedly is quite large (~8000 files distributed among ~100 folders). It's intended for the Everdrive so no folder has more than 243 roms.

 

Can anyone else confirm this issue or know of a workaround to speed things up?

I'm rolling over the fact his TMNT2: The Arcade Game cart (and some of the text on his shirt) have a giant hole in it. Took me a couple minutes to figure out what was up with the label on his cart.

 

Green Screen Fail... :P

 

Carry on...

 

EDIT: Excellent review. :thumbsup:

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Hello Kevtris

 

I am 2 week late as I was busy. You were thinking about how to add coin support for VS systems: You don't have to! Coin is mapped to the microphone input on NES systems. So it already works on your system, just the colors are off (implementing another PPU would fix that).

 

Also a question which is really important to me: Does the jailbreak support Light Guns on SMS or Atari 2600?

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Hello Kevtris

 

I am 2 week late as I was busy. You were thinking about how to add coin support for VS systems: You don't have to! Coin is mapped to the microphone input on NES systems. So it already works on your system, just the colors are off (implementing another PPU would fix that).

 

Also a question which is really important to me: Does the jailbreak support Light Guns on SMS or Atari 2600?

I have the proper PPU palettes in there already, but I don't know why they don't work. I haven't had time to investigate. The coin thing I thought was in there but I might've forgotten that too.

 

I do not have support for the light gun yet but I was going to add it. I will probably use the NES zapper for it since it's already there and should work.

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I do not have support for the light gun yet but I was going to add it. I will probably use the NES zapper for it since it's already there and should work.

 

No I am afraid it won't!

 

In the 8 Bit era are two kinds of guns:

- Light Pen type: XG-1, Light Phaser, Defender, Magnum etc.

- Zapper type: Zapper, Gun, Hyperblaster, Plus X Terminator Laser, Gunstick etc.

 

Guns in one class can't be adapted to work on the other class, as the work fundamentally different. There are games supporting both classes though such as Duck Hunt home brew on MSX. Zapper type guns have no clue at all where they are shooting at, just whether they hit. Thats why msx, Gunstick Games and Famicom have those annoying white squares when shooting.

 

Both systems in question need a pen.

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This jailbreak got me to order one.

 

It really shows that Kevin likes retro games, that makes this product (or most of all the software) beyond great.

 

 

Just a quick question, dont know if its been clearified yet.

 

When the NT Mini running NES games on NTSC speeds its in 60Hz while using HDMI. When running analog output, is it "real" NES speed? Like 60.0988 Hz?

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This jailbreak got me to order one.

 

It really shows that Kevin likes retro games, that makes this product (or most of all the software) beyond great.

 

 

Just a quick question, dont know if its been clearified yet.

 

When the NT Mini running NES games on NTSC speeds its in 60Hz while using HDMI. When running analog output, is it "real" NES speed? Like 60.0988 Hz?

 

From kevtris a couple weeks ago:

 

... In analog modes it outputs native frame rate (i.e. for NES it's 60.09) vs. 60.00 for HDMI.

Edited by cacophony
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OMG I'm so excited I got my Nt mini today!!!

 

kevtris, There are several SMS bios files, which do you recommend for best compatibility? Will I need to manually switch regions when playing or is that automatic? Thanks

 

Edit: I think I just need the 8 KB files. Looks like the others have bundled games. Going to try that :-)

Edited by simbin
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I have not had vary much luck with getting the Gameboy roms to work. I am thinking it might be a problem with the Bios file. Some of the Roms will not load at all I get a window that pops up (File Not Found). If the Rom Does load I get a Blue screen. I tried using a different Bios file and the 2 Roms that worked before now had a blue screen.

 

Any tips or help on getting the Gameboy Core working will be greatly appreciated.

 

simbin The only way I could get the SMS core to work was to select no Bios in the core system menu. There was another box that needed to be checked. Its in the instructions (Extract ?????) cant remember.

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I have not had vary much luck with getting the Gameboy roms to work. I am thinking it might be a problem with the Bios file. Some of the Roms will not load at all I get a window that pops up (File Not Found). If the Rom Does load I get a Blue screen. I tried using a different Bios file and the 2 Roms that worked before now had a blue screen.

 

Any tips or help on getting the Gameboy Core working will be greatly appreciated.

 

simbin The only way I could get the SMS core to work was to select no Bios in the core system menu. There was another box that needed to be checked. Its in the instructions (Extract ?????) cant remember.

 

 

Untested, but I think these are correct. Maybe others can confirm? Thanks

colbios.col     Standard         2C66F5911E5B42B8EBE113403548EEE7
colbios2.col    Skip delay       47F7180592A00B9631C97A12FF0FDD3C
colbios3.col    Bit Corp Dina    00FD13B66D39C69706AA48EB84A78411
ggbios.bin                       672E104C3BE3A238301ACEFFC3B23FD6
smsbios.bin     US version       840481177270D5642A14CA71EE72844C
smsbios2.bin    Japanese         24A519C53F67B00640D0048EF7089105
Edited by simbin
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Untested, but I think these are correct. Maybe others can confirm? Thanks

colbios.col     Standard         2C66F5911E5B42B8EBE113403548EEE7
colbios2.col    Skip delay       47F7180592A00B9631C97A12FF0FDD3C
colbios3.col    Bit Corp Dina    00FD13B66D39C69706AA48EB84A78411
ggbios.bin                       672E104C3BE3A238301ACEFFC3B23FD6
smsbios.bin     US version       840481177270D5642A14CA71EE72844C
smsbios2.bin    Japanese         24A519C53F67B00640D0048EF7089105

 

After loading the SMS core on your analogue NT go into your system menu. You should have a option for core system options or something like that. In there you can select no Bios and check the box for Extract ??? then it will work.

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