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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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1 minute ago, blzmarcel said:

Yeah, I admittedly overlooked / forgot about that, and just mistakenly ran with the assumption that it would be meant playing for all sorts of retro consoles and maybe classic arcade systems, which I don't feel was a totally-way-out-there assumption, especially with Genesis which has the Nomad, but it was an assumption nonetheless, which might have been fueled in part by posts I had seen in previous weeks or months that seemed to allude to a rather wide array of system support.

Yeah, at worst you can still use the Nomad. People around the internet will tell you that the Nomad is a massive pile of trash and it should never have been made or whatever, but I love the Nomad and I play it basically daily in its stock configuration because it's still good enough to use and has such an awesome library that I think it's easy to call it the best handheld ever made. Everybody's going to call me an idiot for saying that, but I don't really care.

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1 minute ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Yeah, at worst you can still use the Nomad. People around the internet will tell you that the Nomad is a massive pile of trash and it should never have been made or whatever, but I love the Nomad and I play it basically daily in its stock configuration because it's still good enough to use and has such an awesome library that I think it's easy to call it the best handheld ever made. Everybody's going to call me an idiot for saying that, but I don't really care.

I still have my original Nomad along with my first gen Gameboy, both of which still work, though I haven't really used them in quite some time.

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26 minutes ago, blzmarcel said:

I still have my original Nomad along with my first gen Gameboy, both of which still work, though I haven't really used them in quite some time.

Yeah, there's really no reason to use the original Game Boy at all because the GBA SP exists. There's no truly appropriate substitute for the Nomad, though. Go check out Mobius Strip Tech's Nomad stuff if you want. It's expensive as hell, but the thought of a modernized Nomad with what I understand is somewhere around double the battery life, an RGB screen (the reason for the increased battery life, as the new screen is far more efficient than the original screen), CD audio and game support with the triple bypass and the MegaSD, and improved audio is awesome.

 

I don't have ~$400 to spend on getting my Nomad modded right now, but I do have the parts for it in my desk waiting. Some day...

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1 hour ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Yeah, there's really no reason to use the original Game Boy at all because the GBA SP exists. There's no truly appropriate substitute for the Nomad, though. Go check out Mobius Strip Tech's Nomad stuff if you want. It's expensive as hell, but the thought of a modernized Nomad with what I understand is somewhere around double the battery life, an RGB screen (the reason for the increased battery life, as the new screen is far more efficient than the original screen), CD audio and game support with the triple bypass and the MegaSD, and improved audio is awesome.

 

I don't have ~$400 to spend on getting my Nomad modded right now, but I do have the parts for it in my desk waiting. Some day...

I loved my Nomad. It just needs a dang reset button.

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7 hours ago, Enragedwhale said:

How do you work that out? $300 + shipping ($50 based on their current rates) is roughly £271. Tax isn’t £180...

 

Im in the U.K. and in my experience the import tax roughly equals the difference between currencies so I’d expect the total cost to be roughly £350. Which is still a lot!


You having a laugh mate.  My Nt mini I had a custom charge of £130 and the £60 they charge me for shipping, not counting any fees from analogue and my bank. to be honest It’ll probably even end up being more.  

Edited by RetrogamerX
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42 minutes ago, RetrogamerX said:


You having a laugh mate.  My Nt mini I had a custom charge of £130 and the £60 they charge me for shipping, not counting any fees from analogue and my bank. to be honest It’ll probably even end up being more.  

The fees for a second mega SG I bought recently were £44.36 (including FedEx fee) shipping was $50. 
 

You pay 20% plus an £8 fee. 
 

So your NT mini must have cost £610?

 

Fees on a pocket and dock will be roughly £63 if shipping is $50.
 

 

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19 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Don't forget the hidden transaction fee that they don't tell you about.

For anyone who wants to avoid a currency conversion fee, just use a credit card that doesn't charge you for currency conversion. Such as American Express. This saved me $50 on the NtM.

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23 hours ago, Enragedwhale said:

I’m in two minds about getting a pocket. It looks properly awesome but I feel a little let down by the support for the Mega SG. Sonic CD and Final Fight CD don’t work on original hardware and tearing in many MS games means I’ve switched back to my JP Megadrive. 

This ^

 

Tearing in Master System games is a disaster for a system that's marketed as aiming for perfection, as is the broken pixel blending in the basic MegaDrive core.

 

The "Pocket" can look like a shiny and desirable new machine now, but after a long period of bugs being ignored like the Master System tearing and broken FM while other options don't have these bugs, you start looking at the console with regret, with an uneasy sensation of having been scammed.

 

What Analogue does is release new hardware while leaving small but important bugs in previous products. That way, something always feels "incomplete", so consumers go after the new (and immensely expensive thanks to abusive shipping rates)  product, in their need to "get things right this time". Then, they are left with bugs again, and Analogue starts a new cycle.

 

This time, Analogue, I am NOT in, and my friends are not in either. If you had fixed MegaSG and SuperNT bugs by now, it would be different. Yeah, you may sell the amount of Pocket consoles for preorder, but by abusing consumers like you do (bugs, abusive shipping costs) you are digging your own grave. You are not alone in the FPGA market anymore, and community-driven projects tend to be far better than your bug-ridden and privative implementations.

Edited by vanfanel
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2 hours ago, vanfanel said:

This ^

 

Tearing in Master System games is a disaster for a system that's marketed as aiming for perfection, as is the broken pixel blending in the basic MegaDrive core.

 

The "Pocket" can look like a shiny and desirable new machine now, but after a long period of bugs being ignored like the Master System tearing and broken FM while other options don't have these bugs, you start looking at the console with regret, with an uneasy sensation of having been scammed.

 

What Analogue does is release new hardware while leaving small but important bugs in previous products. That way, something always feels "incomplete", so consumers go after the new (and immensely expensive thanks to abusive shipping rates)  product, in their need to "get things right this time". Then, they are left with bugs again, and Analogue starts a new cycle.

 

This time, Analogue, I am NOT in, and my friends are not in either. If you had fixed MegaSG and SuperNT bugs by now, it would be different. Yeah, you may sell the amount of Pocket consoles for preorder, but by abusing consumers like you do (bugs, abusive shipping costs) you are digging your own grave. You are not alone in the FPGA market anymore, and community-driven projects tend to be far better than your bug-ridden and privative implementations.

I am OUT as well.  I'm not too much into handheld's but would have bought just because it's another Kevtris project but after the poorly handled NOIR release information, I'm not going to spend money with Analogue for something I'm not 100% in on.  When your customer service isn't working for me, you don't get my money blindly anymore.

Edited by zwooky
grammatical errors
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On 7/29/2020 at 1:10 AM, blzmarcel said:

I loved my Nomad. It just needs a dang reset button.

https://www.gamespot.com/gallery/retro-bit-showcases-a-wave-of-sega-genesis-and-sat/2900-2500/

 

Gamespot says it's $70, which means it's probably just a cheap emulation system, sadly. There has been no news about this since and it was never officially announced, though. They apparently just had it sitting there on display and never once have made any announcements about it from what I can tell.

Edited by Steven Pendleton
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On 7/29/2020 at 7:57 AM, vanfanel said:

This ^

 

Tearing in Master System games is a disaster for a system that's marketed as aiming for perfection, as is the broken pixel blending in the basic MegaDrive core.

 

The "Pocket" can look like a shiny and desirable new machine now, but after a long period of bugs being ignored like the Master System tearing and broken FM while other options don't have these bugs, you start looking at the console with regret, with an uneasy sensation of having been scammed.

 

What Analogue does is release new hardware while leaving small but important bugs in previous products. That way, something always feels "incomplete", so consumers go after the new (and immensely expensive thanks to abusive shipping rates)  product, in their need to "get things right this time". Then, they are left with bugs again, and Analogue starts a new cycle.

 

This time, Analogue, I am NOT in, and my friends are not in either. If you had fixed MegaSG and SuperNT bugs by now, it would be different. Yeah, you may sell the amount of Pocket consoles for preorder, but by abusing consumers like you do (bugs, abusive shipping costs) you are digging your own grave. You are not alone in the FPGA market anymore, and community-driven projects tend to be far better than your bug-ridden and privative implementations.

I think your use of the word "abuse" is misused here.    They can't really do much about shipping costs, especially when selling in certain parts of the world like Australia, and in regards to the outstanding bugs issue, its not like Kevtris is being lazy when it comes to fixing bugs, he's fixed a massive amount of bugs from OG NT Mini to Mega SG, but he's strapped for time and eventually has to move on to the next thing.  Kevtris didn't have the luxury of having multiple devs helping him like you see on the MiSTer platform, but hopefully that will change.  

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On 7/28/2020 at 8:03 AM, blzmarcel said:

Looks nice, though I do wonder why they went with 4 main face buttons instead of 6. This will make playing many six-button Genesis/Mega Drive games difficult, as well as the likes of NeoGeo and others. Feels like an odd oversight for something that is supposed to be a multi-platform classic gaming system. Even the Sega Nomad had all six buttons. Not the end of the world, still looks awesome, though I just wonder why they made this decision.

Neo-Geo only have 4 buttons.   

pc-and-video-games-retro-accessories-neo

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The thinless so it fits in your pocket is overshadowed by the minuteness of the screen. It seems like a waster of the thing's surface area. It's 2020 and the screens are smaller than the 90s. I'd rather have a much better Evercade sized screen.

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I don't mind the size so much as I wish they would have made it in the form factor of the original Game Boy Advance.  That wider system is much more comfortable to hold for me.  It will not stop me from buying one, though.

Edited by Toth
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19 hours ago, SegaSnatcher said:

I think your use of the word "abuse" is misused here.    They can't really do much about shipping costs, especially when selling in certain parts of the world like Australia, and in regards to the outstanding bugs issue, its not like Kevtris is being lazy when it comes to fixing bugs, he's fixed a massive amount of bugs from OG NT Mini to Mega SG, but he's strapped for time and eventually has to move on to the next thing.  Kevtris didn't have the luxury of having multiple devs helping him like you see on the MiSTer platform, but hopefully that will change.  

Am I in Australia? NO. Then apply me reasonable rates.

But well, I assumed them for SuperNT, and again for MegaSG.

 

As for moving it for the next thing, you can do that when you have finished the previous one. In my work, I can NOT do "the next thing" until I finish the current one. And when you leave behind annoying a very noticeable bugs after marketing perfection (like Master System tearing... perfection my ***), you shouldn't either.

Multiple devs? Are Analog prices so low that "they can only afford one dev"?

Yeah, it may change in the future, but not with my money.

And I hope less and less people will fail for Analogue's next incomplete and bug ridden iteration: seeing how they release the next big thing while they abandon previous implementations with bugs is really infuriating. You guys are in time to save yourselves that feeling.

 

But after all, it comes to this: community-driven projects are way better in the end, because no greedy private business leaves the bugs in CLOSED cores unresolved: we can solve them ourselves. None of the annoying bugs that plague the MegaSG are in the MiSTer Master System, MegaDrive and MegaCD cores at this point. And I have my right to say so here, in this thread, as a MegaSG, SuperNT and MiSTer owner.

This is a lesson I had learned a lot of time ago with software, and I had to learn it again with FPGA hardware. Thank you Analogue for the lesson, it just cost me like 800 Euros in wasted hardware and abusive shipping rates. Never again. Only opensource projects from now on.

Edited by vanfanel
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1 hour ago, vanfanel said:

Am I in Australia? NO. Then apply me reasonable rates.

But well, I assumed them for SuperNT, and again for MegaSG.

 

As for moving it for the next thing, you can do that when you have finished the previous one. In my work, I can NOT do "the next thing" until I finish the current one. And when you leave behind annoying a very noticeable bugs after marketing perfection (like Master System tearing... perfection my ***), you shouldn't either.

Multiple devs? Are Analog prices so low that "they can only afford one dev"?

Yeah, it may change in the future, but not with my money.

And I hope less and less people will fail for Analogue's next incomplete and bug ridden iteration: seeing how they release the next big thing while they abandon previous implementations with bugs is really infuriating. You guys are in time to save yourselves that feeling.

 

But after all, it comes to this: community-driven projects are way better in the end, because no greedy private business leaves the bugs in CLOSED cores unresolved: we can solve them ourselves. None of the annoying bugs that plague the MegaSG are in the MiSTer Master System, MegaDrive and MegaCD cores at this point. And I have my right to say so here, in this thread, as a MegaSG, SuperNT and MiSTer owner.

This is a lesson I had learned a lot of time ago with software, and I had to learn it again with FPGA hardware. Thank you Analogue for the lesson, it just cost me like 800 Euros in wasted hardware and abusive shipping rates. Never again. Only opensource projects from now on.

I'm not unsympathetic to your complaints, but I think we get it. You can give it a rest now. Your energy would prob be better spent bitching about this to Analogue on Twitter or something.

Edited by jamon1567
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1 hour ago, vanfanel said:

seeing how they release the next big thing while they abandon previous implementations with bugs is really infuriating.

This is what annoys me with the support for the original NT Mini. When Analogue announced on their Twitter that the Noir will have "all known game bugs fixed" I asked on the discord if the original NT Mini will get the bug fixes where kevtris replied that "I probably won't backport fixes due to various reasons". I understand that the Noir will have a completely new and rewritten NES core but if kev understands what was causing the bugs why can't the fixes be implemented in the original NT Mini NES core? Obviously his time is limited due to his work on the Noir and the Pocket, but it really does make a mockery of Analogue's spiel on "absolute accuracy... you’ll be experiencing the NES free of any compromises" on the NT Mini product page. Again I'm not blaming any of this on kev, but Analogue's position of allowing time for just a couple of months of support for the most recently released console before moving kev on to the next product is pretty infuriating for the customers when the previous consoles remain in a buggy state.

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11 hours ago, Swami said:

The thinless so it fits in your pocket is overshadowed by the minuteness of the screen. It seems like a waster of the thing's surface area. It's 2020 and the screens are smaller than the 90s. I'd rather have a much better Evercade sized screen.

Its much bigger than standard IPS LCD kits for original hardware.

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52 minutes ago, afx_acid said:

This is what annoys me with the support for the original NT Mini. When Analogue announced on their Twitter that the Noir will have "all known game bugs fixed" I asked on the discord if the original NT Mini will get the bug fixes where kevtris replied that "I probably won't backport fixes due to various reasons". I understand that the Noir will have a completely new and rewritten NES core but if kev understands what was causing the bugs why can't the fixes be implemented in the original NT Mini NES core? Obviously his time is limited due to his work on the Noir and the Pocket, but it really does make a mockery of Analogue's spiel on "absolute accuracy... you’ll be experiencing the NES free of any compromises" on the NT Mini product page. Again I'm not blaming any of this on kev, but Analogue's position of allowing time for just a couple of months of support for the most recently released console before moving kev on to the next product is pretty infuriating for the customers when the previous consoles remain in a buggy state.

The hope is, for me anyway, that once the Pocket drops, and after the initial influx of bug fixes, that he'll have time to go back and revisit all of his other projects. Because honestly, I'm not sure where they go next, but whatever it is, the hardware might need some time to catch up before it's affordable for something like an N64 for instance. Ultimately I'm sure that it bothers Kev that these issues exist, so it's really just a matter of him having the time to address them. If, however, they're never addressed, I still think they delivered on what they promised more or less. It's certainly annoying knowing they CAN be fixed, but the Nt Mini is a pretty old product at this point, and I don't think it should be expected that it is supported in perpetuity.

Edited by jamon1567
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23 minutes ago, SegaSnatcher said:

Its much bigger than standard IPS LCD kits for original hardware.

Still sucks for 2020. Waste of surface area. $300 by the time your done and an Evercade is less than $100. Who needs buggy stuff.

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48 minutes ago, Swami said:

Still sucks for 2020. Waste of surface area. $300 by the time your done and an Evercade is less than $100. Who needs buggy stuff.

Evercade is a software emulator handheld with latency.  Software Emulator handhelds are a dime a dozen.  

Pocket will be a much better built system hardware wise, the screen with likely be better too even if its smaller. 

Just did more research on the Evercade.  Pocket has better battery life too.   6 - 10 hrs vs Evercades 4 - 5 hrs.  Not to mention the D-Pad on the Evercade looks pretty awful, like found on those cheap third party controllers. The whole thing just looks super cheap. 
 

Edited by SegaSnatcher
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