FPGA Based Videogame System

[impetus_maximus]

Analogue's repair center has had my Mega Sg since July 11th.

still no word from them.

[Atariboy]

They have my Pocket as well. I was hoping to get it back within a month of them receiving it, but it sounds like I better expect a long wait.

[impetus_maximus]

1 minute ago, Atariboy said:

They have my Pocket as well. I was hoping to get it back within a month of them receiving it, but it sounds like I better expect a long wait.

fingers crossed for all of us waiting. 

[Tanooki]

Maybe they'll get to it after Group C ships in 2023, but mostly 2024.

[Atariboy]

If it's actually fixed and I get it back, I'd be okay with 2024. Not in a big rush and I have plenty of other systems and games to keep me occupied when I want to play a videogame. But something weird was going on with it that mostly was affecting Open FPGA and I'm not at all confident it will be fixed. In fact support wouldn't even acknowledge it over e-mail so I sent along a printed message with my Pocket explaining some of the strangeness in the hope the person doing their repairs will read it and act accordingly.

 

For an example in a long list of strange behavior that nobody else seemingly has reported happening to them with their own Pockets, I was playing the Q*Bert arcade core after playing NES Zelda one night. About 10 levels in the screen went crazy, I saw NES Zelda appear for 2 or 3 seconds, and then the core settled down and I was back to Q*Bert. There's not supposed to be remnants of the previous code that was loaded left in memory when you switch cores, yet it happened just the same.

 

The d-pad is faulty (up triggers an up/left diagonal way too easily) and support acknowledged that, but not the much bigger issue that I want fixed much more (I stressed that there was more wrong than just the d-pad as we communicated back and forth 3 or 4 times over e-mail, but I never did get an acknowledgement of what I assume is a faulty internal component on my system).

 

But hopefully I'll get lucky and get a fully working Pocket eventually.

Edited August 17, 2023 by Atariboy

[impetus_maximus]

47 minutes ago, Atariboy said:

I'd be okay with 2024.

[impetus_maximus]

just got my Mega Sg back. SD card slot is still not seeing/mounting the card. 

[Atariboy]

They have a reputation of sending hardware back unrepaired. Hence my lack of optimism that my Pocket will actually be repaired.

[impetus_maximus]

well i've been thoruogh, and somewhat patient up til now. if they don't send me a working Mega Sg, i'm going to file for a charge back with my CC company.

[Ricdeau]

That’s very disheartening to hear. I, thankfully, have not had any issues with any of my Analogue systems, but this brings about concerns if I ever do.

 

I too, would be irritated and out of patience.

[Atariboy]

On 8/19/2023 at 3:27 PM, impetus_maximus said:

just got my Mega Sg back. SD card slot is still not seeing/mounting the card. 

I joined the club today. Faults like this are still happening on my "repaired" system.

That's the arcade classic Jungle King running in the Taito SJ core by Anton Gale via OpenFPGA on my Analogue Pocket. Those broken segmented lines are supposed to be swinging vines. The FPGA core author has had no other reports of this happening. He can't reproduce it nor explain what's happening.

 

That's just one example of many strange issues with my Pocket. And while concentrated around OpenFPGA, problems have occasionally afflicted the built-in GBA core (I've not had any GB/GBC issues with original carts but I've only invested significant time in a few GBA cartridges so far on the Pocket).

 

I've bought multiple brand new name-brand micro SD cards, tried both formatting types supported by the Pocket, and multiple auto updaters and manual core installations. So I feel reasonably confident in ruling out user error at my end.

Edited August 22, 2023 by Atariboy

[Atariboy]

Contacting them. Wonder if I'll even get a response this time or if they consider the matter closed.

 

I sent this e-mail.

 

"Faults like this are still happening on my repaired system.

That's the arcade classic Jungle King running in the Taito SJ core by Anton Gale via OpenFPGA on my Analogue Pocket. Those broken segmented lines are supposed to be swinging vines. The FPGA core author has had no other reports of this happening. He can't reproduce it nor explain what's happening.

 

That's just one example of many strange issues with my Pocket. And while concentrated around OpenFPGA, problems have occasionally afflicted the built-in GBA core (I've not had any GB/GBC issues with original carts but I've only invested significant time in a few GBA cartridges so far on the Pocket). For instance of an issue with a genuine cart, audio disappeared with Super Mario Advance 2: Super Mario World.

 

I've bought multiple brand new name-brand micro SD cards, I've tried both formatting types supported by the Pocket, and I've tried multiple auto updaters and manual core installations to my micro SD card. So I feel reasonably confident in ruling out user error at my end or OpenFPGA programming mistakes by these core authors (If it's faulty programming, these issues should afflict all Pocket owners and not be unique to my hardware).

 

I hope you can help."

 

At least it largely does work with GB/GBC/GBA and if a core is going to cause issues, it's almost immediate instead of after a lot of gameplay (minus that one event I posted about earlier where NES Zelda made a surprise visit while fairly deep into arcade Q*Bert). And most OpenFPGA issues I've been able to find tricks to work around except for the Taito SJ core. For instance the Eric Lewis core for the Sega Genesis will 100% of the time have a severe fault that's almost immediate if I select it from a cold start. Yet if I first switch to the Kevtris core and then immediately switch back to the Eric Lewis core, it will perform without issue. Strange but it works.

Edited August 22, 2023 by Atariboy

[impetus_maximus]

@Atariboy i'm sorry to hear you didn't get yours fixed. 

 

i emaled Analogue Saturday, and just got a reply.

"Upon checking with our repair center, they confirmed that the motherboard has been replaced with a new one therefore the SD card slot is also new. Have you tried using a different SD card?"

 

rolling my eyes i said why not and another adapter with the same SD card. to my astonishment, it flashed the jailbreak!

so i guess they did fix it. the adapter that now works was one i tried when i first got the unit. 

 

i'm going to buy an actuall SD card that size instead of messing with these crappy MicroDS>SD adapters!

 

hope you get your Pocket sorted Atariboy! 

[Atariboy]

Glad to hear your Mega Sg was actually fixed.

 

Also pleased to hear that Analogue has some records and was able to confident tell you that the motherboard had been replaced. Maybe there's some hope yet for my Pocket.

 

I'll have to do some more testing with my system. I suppose there's a chance that my other issues won't ever reappear and that there's just some quirk with the programming of the Taito SJ core that doesn't play nice with my particular revision of the Pocket. That core is a bit niche for much of the Pocket audience so the lack of reports that match mine might just be because few Pocket owners have even tried it. 

 

Edit: Yeah, it's definitely not been fixed. Just started the Eric Lewis core for the Genesis from a cold start, started Race Drivin', and my car flew 1,000' in the air after about 50' of driving. Another classic fault on my system but at least it's one I know how to avoid. If I start this core from a cold start it always has near immediate issues, but if I first select and start the Kevtris Genesis core and then switch back it will perform fault-free.

Edited August 22, 2023 by Atariboy

[impetus_maximus]

@Atariboy was the issue with the D-Pad fixed at least?

[Atariboy]

1 hour ago, impetus_maximus said:

@Atariboy was the issue with the D-Pad fixed at least?

That actually was rectified.

 

I can still trigger accidental left/up diagonals when pressing up, but not nearly as easily as before. And watching as I do this with a SNES controller test program in the OpenFPGA SNES core, it only happens when my thumb is lightly contacting left on the d-pad (i.e., it's now user error rather than a d-pad fault).

 

I can also rock my thumb from left to right and vice versa without tons of accidental upwards and downwards presses. Racing games that map up and downshifts to the d-pad were tough to play with how the d-pad initially was, with tons of accidental gear shifts while steering.

[impetus_maximus]

well that's good at least.

[Atariboy]

So far I'm being ignored. Just sent off a new e-mail...

 

Getting quite irritated hearing all these people enjoying their new Pocket and I can't get one fixed under warranty to get it into the shape that it should've been in when I opened it up.

[Tanooki]

Damn I feel bad about that for you, you don't deserve it, not that anyone would given their hefty prices on things.  In a flip side of things, it makes me even happier I DID sell mine off to someone fairly near by, ultimately in the end at my end cost too just to break even out from under it.  I've seen enough random dissatisfaction, issues (not to your level), and coupled with the reseller antics about it put me off them entirely.  They're approaching LRG status where IDGAF what they do I don't want to send anything again, I'd be hard pressed even if they re-issued the NES or MVS in a FPGA core to pay them at this rate.  Their customer service is shit, second to their gag worthy shipping costs.

[NE146]

On 8/21/2023 at 9:59 PM, Atariboy said:

problems have occasionally afflicted the built-in GBA core (I've not had any GB/GBC issues with original carts but I've only invested significant time in a few GBA cartridges so far on the Pocket). For instance of an issue with a genuine cart, audio disappeared with Super Mario Advance 2: Super Mario World.

That's the stuff I would focus on.. i.e. the advertised function of the unit they provide out of the box, and less about the openFPGA stuff. because they don't support that really (same as with 'jailbreaks' on their other consoles). 

 

So any issues with playing real GB/GBC/GBA carts (despite it being less common than with openfpga) is what I would emphasize. If you could find a game that goes out of whack with some consistency that would be even better.  I guess if you do mention openfpga, maybe as a mention towards the end as additional potential evidence of hardware instability.. especially if it's can be recreated with some consistency.

 

 

 

Edited August 27, 2023 by NE146

[Atariboy]

While Analogue has rigged their submarine for silent running and is hiding somewhere in the depths out of e-mail range, two of the Pocket community's core authors have hopped in trying to be helpful. The current theory is my Pocket doesn't have a fault but that the Cyclone V is on the edge of being in-spec, causing some issues that the average Pocket doesn't have.

 

So while it passed quality control, cores with timing issues have flaws on my system. For instance the Taito SJ arcade core was one such problem area, but has been rectified with a fix and is now running beautifully on my system.

Edited September 4, 2023 by Atariboy

[roots.genoa]

To be honest, I still have to download any third party core (except a few ones at the beginning of OpenFPGA, the Pong and SpaceWar ones)... I applaud the work of the community but I'm not sure I trust them enough to produce flawless cores, especially since they usually lack the proper documentation to do so.

[Atariboy]

A lot of these cores are quite exceptional. They're not all created equal of course, but the majority are high quality and equivalent to the system's built-in GB/GBC/GBA cores in regard to features, accuracy, etc.

 

Many of the OpenFPGA cores are also from "Spirtualized1937". Given their quick appearance at the beginning of OpenFPGA and their mirroring of the Nt Mini Noir's core list (which wasn't open to 3rd parties), they obviously were done internally and essentially are official. It's believed Analogue has wanted Kevtris to distance himself from what started out as the "Core Store" on the original Nt Mini (which is also why officially none of these play roms and require unofficial jailbreak firmware in order to do so), so what's all but confirmed as his subsequent cores have instead came out via Smokemonster on GitHub for the Super Nt/Mega Sg/Noir and then under the Spirtualized1937 name on the Pocket.

Edited September 4, 2023 by Atariboy

[NE146]

7 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

To be honest, I still have to download any third party core (except a few ones at the beginning of OpenFPGA, the Pong and SpaceWar ones)... I applaud the work of the community but I'm not sure I trust them enough to produce flawless cores, especially since they usually lack the proper documentation to do so.

Trust as in there's a chance they may brick your Pocket? My assumption is that can't happen...but regardless, those cores are almost the entire value and attraction of the Pocket for me. Not even mentioning the arcade and handheld cores, to just sit there and have the lion's share of SNES, GEN, TG16, NEO-GEO, NES, SMS, 2600, 7800, Colecovision, etc. console libraries all in the palm of your hand with an awesome screen and (mostly) everything runs as expected is what it's all about.  

 

The ONE drawback to me (sometimes) is.... well it's not software emulation. (lol) Occasionally I do prefer emulation for easy save states (although some Pocket cores support them), and more importantly.. REWIND.  I recently got all the endings in GEN - Contra Hard Corps on the Switch thanks to save states + rewind. I could probably never finish that on the Pocket even with the Jap/hacked versions that make it easier.

Edited September 4, 2023 by NE146

[roots.genoa]

12 hours ago, Atariboy said:

Many of the OpenFPGA cores are also from "Spirtualized1937".

Yes, I got those, I don't consider them third party. 😉

 

5 hours ago, NE146 said:

Trust as in there's a chance they may brick your Pocket?

No, like I said, because I don't trust their accuracy. Kevtris retro-engineers systems he recreates. Most people don't have access to the exact design of the original systems, so they more or less port software emulators. And that's not the way to do it imho.

 

5 hours ago, NE146 said:

console libraries all in the palm of your hand

Like I said in another thread very recently, I don't pirate stuff because I don't like being overwhelmed with fullsets and spend an hour deciding which game to play, then realizing I don't have the time to play it anymore. 😩 I (almost) only play games I've bought. On Pocket, I only downloaded Master System ROMs for games I own on carts because the Pocket has savestates while the Mega Sg doesn't, and I suck at video games. 😅

I would probably use arcade/NeoGeo cores and the Game & Watch core, though.