FPGA Based Videogame System

[Sneakyturtleegg]

How about implementing a .pdf reader? Would that be too difficult? It would be nice to have some manuals and maps on the SD card for reference.

[Sneakyturtleegg]

Also, does anyone know if a micro sd card in a SD adapter will work in the NT Mini? I've got a system coming and am not sure if I need to buy a new SD card. I'm just trying to use some stuff I have laying around.

[cacophony]

I guess it's all relative. I spent $142 on a standard edition N8 from Stone Age Gamer (buying from krikzz directly would have saved ~$20), and $100 on a nice condition original top loader that I was going to have modded for hdmi. if I were to add the hdmi mod kit and Voultar's mod installation (with shipping), I'd be looking at:~ $142+100+132+100 = $474

 

The Nt Mini was cheaper and offers significantly more functionality, so I consider it a bargain.

Edited March 5, 2017 by cacophony

[genfuyung]

So, to hear the expansion audio on carts, do I need to know exactly which chip to enable in the menus per game or can I just go in and turn them all on and never have to worry about getting non expansion audio?

[Namdor]

Also, does anyone know if a micro sd card in a SD adapter will work in the NT Mini? I've got a system coming and am not sure if I need to buy a new SD card. I'm just trying to use some stuff I have laying around.

Micro with adapter works perfect.

[Namdor]

How about implementing a .pdf reader? Would that be too difficult? It would be nice to have some manuals and maps on the SD card for reference.

I'd love this feature. I asked for it through the analogue forum and they said it couldn't be done though . It would be sweet to pause the game and read a manual for controller layouts and story etc though like Pause allows in a hyperspin setup.

[retro_fan]

How about implementing a .pdf reader? Would that be too difficult? It would be nice to have some manuals and maps on the SD card for reference.

It does not seem to be possible, this thing operates on a similar level as real hardware. Have you ever seen a .pdf reader on NES? Manuals in text files + some tips & tricks might be possible though (and maybe + some simple graphics, but we need to ask kevtris). Of course, such text files should be provided by the community.

Edited March 5, 2017 by retro_fan

[AtariNerd]

A PDF reader would pretty much need it's own OS, capable of decoding the format. Might be able to modify one of the existing cores to do so, but that is a good deal of work. Maybe a basic text file reader could be possible, but that might be something for a fan project. Develop it as cart image, capable of reading the appropriate files.

 

Looks like I'll need to save up for some cart and port adapter doo-dads. Even if I embrace my Pirate side, something in me wants the legit means to play those games, if the opportunity presents itself. Well, that and the collector in me that wants "All of the Things" Worthwhile investment, to me.

Edited March 5, 2017 by Standard User

[veelk55]

I would never, ever expect a PDF reader from an FPGA based game console XD
Would totally expect it from something like a Raspberry Pi game console though.

If I was a bad enough dude, a hardcore enough fan, had all the time in the world and was a programmer (a genius one at that)... I would probably design something that lets me create NES roms that would contain text with graphics. (Think Ninja Gaiden's sequences that have text and some images)
But even then you wouldn't be able to open that without closing the game you're playing, and save stating is out of the question.

Edited March 5, 2017 by veelk55

[cacophony]

But even then you wouldn't be able to open that without closing the game you're playing, and save stating is out of the question.

 

I still don't quite understand why save states are so difficult given that the Everdrive and Powerpak do it (not perfect, but works for most games). Isn't Kevtris emulating the cart hardware via FPGA in the same way as the Everdrive and Powerpak? Maybe somebody can explain...

Edited March 5, 2017 by cacophony

[phoenixdownita]

 

I still don't quite understand why save states are so difficult given that the Everdrive and Powerpak do it (not perfect, but works for most games). Isn't Kevtris emulating the cart hardware via FPGA in the same way as the Everdrive and Powerpak? Maybe somebody can explain...

I believe kevtris aims for perfection, in order to do so for savestates the complete statemachine of the FPGA as well as every memory location needs be serialized to the file (and syncronized) .... anything less is "amatuer" at best and kevtris does not go for "amateur", it's either "pro" or "bust".

 

Seriously though you may ask him (reply quoting one one of his many posts) and he will likely answer you .... plus as the neogeo says "Winners don't use drugs" or "cheats"

[phonedork]

Whoops, looks like I forgot to hit save on the readme.txt in the zip file, and failed to mention them in my post. There were actually quite a few bugfixes this time:

 

* Added Supervision core.

* Added Gamate core.

* Added Game King core.

* Fixed system settings menu in core mode. There were 8 entries selectable but the menu only has 6.

* Fixed the B button setting in the file browser. start/end vs. back 1 level was flip-flopped.

* Fixed long directories dropping a character into the file browser border.

* Fixed save RAM issues. Clearing save ram on first play of a game (NES).

* Fixed star tropics 1/2 save issues as well. Be sure to set submapper to 1 to play these! (NES)

* Change to a different timing generator when entering the menu on Atari 2600 for analog video modes so the

monitor can synch up if the 2600 is not generating timing.

Kevtris,

Could you possibly add 5x or even 6x vertical scale on the atari 2600? I think that the 2600 resolution is low enough for that type of scaling IMO

[killersquirel]

I'm waiting to get my Mini NT, but I'm curious if either the jailbreak or the actual firmware does the Nintendo VS system? If not would it be possible to implement that so that people can play the arcade VS games? Often times they offered some more challenge that didn't exist in the home version.

[Wolf_]

It's that time again: new firmware friday! Today I have a triplet of cores. These are:

 

Game King

Gamate

Supervision

 

A triumvirate of LCD handhelds! These handhelds are fairly obscure, though but I still had fun playing them.

 

This brings the core count up to a total of 10. The Core Store is coming along pretty well I'd say.

totals so far:

 

NES

Master System

Game Gear

Colecovision

Gameboy

GBC

Atari 2600

Supervision

Gamate

Game King

 

left to do:

Adventure Vision

Atari 7800

RCA Studio 2

Channel F

Videobrain

Arcadia 2001

Creativision

Odyssey^2

Intellivision

SPC player

Mandelbrot viewer (this probably won't be released on here, because of the total lack of multipliers. or it will be vastly limited. We'll see)

 

This means I'm about halfway through.

 

Anyways, enjoy!

 

http://blog.kevtris.org/blogfiles/ntm_firmware_verJB1.4.zip

I know you've been turned off by a few of these systems because of the communities behind them or the nature of the code but are there no longer plans to support any of these systems:

NeoGeo

GeoGeo Pocket Color

TG16

Wonderswan

Lynx

 

Because the main reason I pulled the trigger on this was to have it work with NeoGeo as I don't have $600 to buy one, $500 for the everdrive (when it comes out), and it doesn't have a hdmi mod.

[fiddlepaddle]

 

...donated their organs for the NT Mini

 

Oooh good, they're accepting organs now! I have a portion of a prostate I'll trade...

[kevtris]

Where are the Jap Mark III and Sega Card adapters? Chop chop chop

Great work btw.

 

I can see MK eating is own soul right now twice over given for a while he had "the master" on-board ...

 

PS: also this is your way to announce O^2 is coming, shortly

It's pretty funny to me because I was pitching basically this same idea to them (well with a different form factor on the connector for cart adapters) but his engineer basically poopooed everything I said. And it was even funnier when I described the Zimba 3000 to them, and showed them the PCB and shared my specs and plans, only to see their system basically clone everything. The only difference was having an ARM SOC on it vs. the PIC before the kitchen sinking started and it ended up using some hot new TI chip under NDA (wonder what chip that ended up being?) and a $300 BOM.

 

I am not sorry to be part of the disaster and to be honest I was only sticking around in a minimal capacity (basically joining in on skype calls and I didn't actually do any real work) just in case it ever came to pass, but I knew after the second call it'd never ever come to fruition because they couldn't nail down any system specs, and each call the costs kept going up and up and it'd run more and more things. Then they started talking about the lunacy of no updates and carts that HAD to work 50 years later (lol). I hated to pop their bubble and tell them that most of the chips they were using had flash inside them such as the power supply chips which use it to trim output voltages and stuff.

 

Interestingly, I never did see any PCB design that John did, and he claimed to have been working on it for 'months'. The only design I saw was with everyone else when they printed the cardboard PCB and glued parts to it. Still trying to figure out what the purpose of those giant heatsinks and heat pipes were. The FPGAs don't get very hot, at least the ones they were using.

 

Wonder where they are now, and what happened to any/all of the RVGS/Coleco Chameleon specs and design documents if they existed?

 

In any event, the Core Store is going great guns and thanks to everyone for their support and kind words!

[kevtris]

Kevtris,

Could you possibly add 5x or even 6x vertical scale on the atari 2600? I think that the 2600 resolution is low enough for that type of scaling IMO

 

Maybe. The problem with 2600 is the variable height of the games is very difficult to integrate with the scaler. I have to plan for the worst case scenario (PAL) and compensate for it.

 

 

I still don't quite understand why save states are so difficult given that the Everdrive and Powerpak do it (not perfect, but works for most games). Isn't Kevtris emulating the cart hardware via FPGA in the same way as the Everdrive and Powerpak? Maybe somebody can explain...

 

Save states are difficult because this is not a computer. It's running at the hardware level, so saving all the registers and mapper stuff and things would be very difficult to do. The flash carts get away with it because it's on a per-mapper basis. Emulators can do it easily since it's all just data sitting in RAM. Unfortunately I do not have this luxury and I'd basically have to rewrite everything from the ground up which I am not willing to do right now. The amount of work required would be staggering. My mappers are integrated into one giant "supermapper" structure basically that emulates ALL mappers at once and selects which to use. I was thinking about redoing this using a mapper CPU or something but it ended up not working out so I left it as-is to focus on adding in all the other systems.

 

I know you've been turned off by a few of these systems because of the communities behind them or the nature of the code but are there no longer plans to support any of these systems:

NeoGeo

GeoGeo Pocket Color

TG16

Wonderswan

Lynx

 

Because the main reason I pulled the trigger on this was to have it work with NeoGeo as I don't have $600 to buy one, $500 for the everdrive (when it comes out), and it doesn't have a hdmi mod.

 

I never said this would run neogeo, and it can never run neogeo. The Z3K can probably run it though. The 16 megabytes of SDRAM in the nt mini can't even hold a single neogeo game. The Z3K has four DDR busses on it just to get the memory bandwidth required for neogeo (and space). As for the other systems, I plan on doing lynx some time for the mini but the others I don't have any plans yet except on the Z3K.

[Wolf_]

I never said this would run neogeo, and it can never run neogeo. The Z3K can probably run it though. The 16 megabytes of SDRAM in the nt mini can't even hold a single neogeo game. The Z3K has four DDR busses on it just to get the memory bandwidth required for neogeo (and space). As for the other systems, I plan on doing lynx some time for the mini but the others I don't have any plans yet except on the Z3K.

Ah, my mistake. Would you be able to do the tg16, neogeo pocket color, and wonderswan on the nt mini?

[RampantOctopus]

heh. maybe include a PSVR core while you're at it?

[cacophony]

Save states are difficult because this is not a computer. It's running at the hardware level, so saving all the registers and mapper stuff and things would be very difficult to do. The flash carts get away with it because it's on a per-mapper basis. Emulators can do it easily since it's all just data sitting in RAM. Unfortunately I do not have this luxury and I'd basically have to rewrite everything from the ground up which I am not willing to do right now. The amount of work required would be staggering. My mappers are integrated into one giant "supermapper" structure basically that emulates ALL mappers at once and selects which to use. I was thinking about redoing this using a mapper CPU or something but it ended up not working out so I left it as-is to focus on adding in all the other systems.

 

Thanks for the detailed explanation! Makes sense. And I certainly wouldn't want you distracted from core development

[Keatah]

MK and co. have gotta be pooping their panties by now.

Edited March 6, 2017 by Keatah

[atmn]

500$ is a quite a price tag, honestly I have no problem spending this money on a system like this. I think its really intresting what you can do with a FPGA. Really hope Kevtris makes money per sold unit, cause thanks to him this sells.

Thinking what a smartphone costs and how long they last this is not a poor investment.

 

 

 

Make the cartridge adapters compatible with the Z3K would be a great idea I think. Since the pin mapping is already done to the Famicom port.

Edited March 6, 2017 by atmn

[Keatah]

PDF and other "doc" files, while doable, aren't worth taking an entire core to decode and display them. Especially since there are many ways to do that on a computer. Why reinvent the wheel.

 

Get an el'cheapo computer and dedicate it as a companion to the z3k, unless z3k goes advanced and incorporates a full processor running a full OS. Use the computer to contain and organize all your classic gaming material in the digital domain. Scans, roms, docs, ads, manuals, references, books, pdfs, videos, cheats, notes. ALL OF IT!

 

Meantime there's software emulation to hold you over. This on two separate monitors, the game can be paused or left running.

 

Edited March 6, 2017 by Keatah

[kevtris]

I can't stop making PCBs! I have made 4 more. This time, it's not cartridge adapters though... It's cartridge EMULATOR boards! This will let me poke 4 new systems that I wish to add to the Z3K/ nt mini. They are... APF MP1000, Bally Astrocade, Supervision (since I have the TV link now), and Megaduck. Nothing too great, but I want some answers from all those things. This will pretty much wrap up all the systems I have here. Eventually I will probably make some others but this rounds out my board order. I have 14 different boards on order now!

 

Going to have a board stuffing party soon!

 

For those new to all this, the cartridge emulator is a device I designed last year that has what amounts to a ROM emulator board, and then individual cartridge boards that connect to it with some flex cables, allowing me to make a pretty swanky emulator and have replaceable cartridge adapters that work per-system instead of making a whole new thing each time.

 

 

 

 

[atmn]

Awesome job!

Plan to sell them ready to go, or maybe digital download as is gerb-files?

Always quite unaffordable to order from US.

 

Also, I thought about the MSX, I know is a computer basicly but its give or take the same thing as the SMS? Thinking about those Konami games that are exclusive that system.