FPGA Based Videogame System

[kevtris]

Has anyone tested RGB on a Nt mini since the last restock? I received my unit last week and it's performed great over HDMI, but Retro Gaming Cables have been out-of-stock on their SCART cables for the past few weeks as far as I can tell and it'd be good to verify if my console has the analog fault. Postage of the various recommended Monoprice cables to the UK is extremely expensive, but I might have to spend the money it seems.

 

I'm surprised the analog issue hasn't been picked up on by any professional reviews (or maybe it was a very small batch of the consoles that were affected?).

what issue, the red not working? it must be a pcb issue, since R, G, and B all come out of the same chip. it being pin pin 1 (red) is kinda weird on 2? cases now.

[coderkind]

what issue, the red not working? it must be a pcb issue, since R, G, and B all come out of the same chip. it being pin pin 1 (red) is kinda weird on 2? cases now.

Yes; the red not working (...and hello by the way, and thanks for all your fantastic work; it's hugely appreciated ).

 

I'm intending to use the Nt mini with my 1080p screen AND my Sony BVM (via a SCART-to-BNC cable from Retro Gaming Cables that I use with a range of other old consoles), but as I mentioned, they're out-of-stock currently of their DB15-to-SCART cable. I don't want to have to import the Monoprice cables as the postage ends up something like 4-5 times the original price of the cables to send here to the UK, but will want to do something reasonably soon as if there's an issue with a batch of Nt mini's then I'd want to get mine repaired within warranty.

[Fafner]

My host is still having problems, but increasing the timeout from 20 seconds to 120 for connecting worked, took about a minute to connect and another to upload. Anyways, I hope this fixes the problems. Let me know if it doesn't.

 

http://blog.kevtris.org/blogfiles/ntm_firmware_verJB1.6.zip

 

Thanks for another AMAZING update!

 

I have another question though...

Regarding the consoles that require more buttons than the a NES controllers have...

Would it be possible to set the extra buttons to controllers in the 3rd and 4th player controller ports?

 

I know I can use the 8bitdo controller but personally prefer my original controllers...

 

Thanks!

[kevtris]

 

Thanks for another AMAZING update!

 

I have another question though...

Regarding the consoles that require more buttons than the a NES controllers have...

Would it be possible to set the extra buttons to controllers in the 3rd and 4th player controller ports?

 

I know I can use the 8bitdo controller but personally prefer my original controllers...

 

Thanks!

possibly but it's more work. I thought about it for awhile but I think the better method will be the controller adapter I have planned. I still got 8 or 9 cores to port and debugging to do and cart adapters so it's probably going to be stuck with what I got for now. sorry 'bout that. Friend's working on making SNES to NES controller cables though, so those might be available in awhile, to let you use regular SNES controllers on the mini.

[Thomas83Lin]

I'm curious, would a standard db15 to bnc rgb+hv cable work on the nt mini??. I have one similar to this that I already use on my PVM. Would it work to output to my pvm from the mini.

Edited March 13, 2017 by Thomas83Lin

[Great Hierophant]

A few questions about NES 2.0 submappers. In the Nt Mini, most uses for the submappers seem to avoid well-known conflicts between incompatible mapper assignments, Statropics 1 & 2 vs. Low-G-Man at Mapper 4, Holy Diver vs. Cosmo Carrier at Mapper 78.

 

Would I have any problem running a 16KB total sized Galaxian ROM, or must it be 24KB?

 

Can I use the PRG-RAM byte in NES 2.0 to distinguish between SOROM and SXROM from SNROM and SUROM?

 

Is the Acclaim MMC3 behavior emulated, which is needed by The Incredible Crash Dummies and Mickey Mouse in Letterland? That was assigned submapper 4.3 not too long ago.

 

Should Mapper 71 be set only for Fire Hawk and its mirroring scheme, as it must be on the EverDrive, or should it be set for all Codemasters non-Quattro games?

 

Do the dipswitches for the NWC cart work?

[rezb1t]

Do the dipswitches for the NWC cart work?

Not sure about some of the other questions yet, but I do know the dip switches work on NWC and other games that have them! Press start on the rom in the list and it'll give you a menu, the menu has a dip switches option

Edited March 13, 2017 by rezb1t

[kevtris]

I'm curious, would a standard db15 to bnc rgb+hv cable work on the nt mini??. I have one similar to this that I already use on my PVM. Would it work to output to my pvm from the mini.

It should. I have one of those and that is how I am using it. The monoprice ones all work, too. So long as they don't short the lines that make it detect as composite or component it should be good. I call them "pentapus" because it has 5 BNCs hanging off. as in: "hold on, I gotta go get the RGB pentapus!"

 

A few questions about NES 2.0 submappers. In the Nt Mini, most uses for the submappers seem to avoid well-known conflicts between incompatible mapper assignments, Statropics 1 & 2 vs. Low-G-Man at Mapper 4, Holy Diver vs. Cosmo Carrier at Mapper 78.

 

Would I have any problem running a 16KB total sized Galaxian ROM, or must it be 24KB?

 

Can I use the PRG-RAM byte in NES 2.0 to distinguish between SOROM and SXROM from SNROM and SUROM?

 

Is the Acclaim MMC3 behavior emulated, which is needed by The Incredible Crash Dummies and Mickey Mouse in Letterland? That was assigned submapper 4.3 not too long ago.

 

Should Mapper 71 be set only for Fire Hawk and its mirroring scheme, as it must be on the EverDrive, or should it be set for all Codemasters non-Quattro games?

 

Do the dipswitches for the NWC cart work?

a 16K total size ROM will not work, unless it has VRAM. The system will think it's a single 16K PRG bank, and no CHR ROM. This will cause a size mismatch error on ROM loading and it will complain and refuse to run it. The ines spec only has 16K bank granularity for PRG, so running 8K of PRG and 8K of CHR will not work without doubling the PRG up.

 

I can't remember, but I think 71 works on all non-quattro games. It's been awhile.

 

And yeah the dip switches should work.

[funkwad]

RGB working really well on 2nd stock NT mini's with the Retrogaming cables...

 

One minor note was audio sound issues, but upgraded firmware from Analogue's site and that was immediately addressed.

 

Holy crap on 7800 - can't wait to finally play ninja golf, and in RGB...Kevtris for president

Edited March 13, 2017 by funkwad

[Thomas83Lin]

It should. I have one of those and that is how I am using it. The monoprice ones all work, too. So long as they don't short the lines that make it detect as composite or component it should be good. I call them "pentapus" because it has 5 BNCs hanging off. as in: "hold on, I gotta go get the RGB pentapus!"

Any damage if the cable does short the detect lines? how could I test that before trying the cable

 

edit: Looking through analogue nt mini pdf guide, it shows pin10 is the detection pin. My pin10 on this cable is grounded, so I'm not sure.hmm

Edited March 13, 2017 by Thomas83Lin

[kevtris]

Any damage if the cable does short the detect lines? how could I test that before trying the cable

 

edit: Looking through analogue nt mini pdf guide, it shows pin10 is the detection pin. My pin10 on this cable is grounded, so I'm not sure.hmm

There's 8 possible combinations on the three lines. Only 2 of them are checked, however.

 

5 10 15

. . . (all 3 lines open) = component

G . . (pin 5 grounded, pins 10/15 open) = composite / s-vid

 

any other combination = RGB. So pin 10 being grounded and 5/15 open will make it output RGB.

 

One of the pentapuses I have grounds 5, 10, and 15 and one of them only grounded 10. Both work fine here.

[Thomas83Lin]

Thanks! I believe it will work then, out of those 3 pins only pin10 is grounded.

[Fafner]

GAME KING!

So I spent entirely too much time messing around with Game King games tonight!

 

I've come across several of the 4 in 1 games that load the menu but just go to a blank screen when you select a game. This doesn't happen with all the 4 in 1s but it is annoying!

 

You guys think I just have a few bad rom dumps or something weird in the Bios?

 

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

 

 

I've developed a weird love for this system and now I kinda need to own a real one!

[kevtris]

GAME KING!

So I spent entirely too much time messing around with Game King games tonight!

 

I've come across several of the 4 in 1 games that load the menu but just go to a blank screen when you select a game. This doesn't happen with all the 4 in 1s but it is annoying!

 

You guys think I just have a few bad rom dumps or something weird in the Bios?

 

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

 

 

I've developed a weird love for this system and now I kinda need to own a real one!

yeah those are bad dumps. I ended up finding some good dumps of all of them I think. There were a few bad dumps because there was no emulator at the time to test them I believe.

[Fafner]

yeah those are bad dumps. I ended up finding some good dumps of all of them I think. There were a few bad dumps because there was no emulator at the time to test them I believe.

Yeah....

I had a really hard time finding ANY dumps for it!

Someone on here pointed me to the set I found.

Any hints where I can find a good set?

[atmn]

Has anyone tested RGB on a Nt mini since the last restock? I received my unit last week and it's performed great over HDMI, but Retro Gaming Cables have been out-of-stock on their SCART cables for the past few weeks as far as I can tell and it'd be good to verify if my console has the analog fault. Postage of the various recommended Monoprice cables to the UK is extremely expensive, but I might have to spend the money it seems.

 

I'm surprised the analog issue hasn't been picked up on by any professional reviews (or maybe it was a very small batch of the consoles that were affected?).

My Nt Mini are from the second restock, and having the Pin1 issue. Maybe it's this batch only that having the problem.

To bad this takes my time from using this awesone piece of hardware.

 

 

what issue, the red not working? it must be a pcb issue, since R, G, and B all come out of the same chip. it being pin pin 1 (red) is kinda weird on 2? cases now.

From what chip are they going, have a schematics?

Probably like you say. Bad connection from the chip.

 

Also, are the power to the USB hard-wired? Now its giving power when on standby. Are there anyhow to control it via software to just enable power on power on?

Edited March 13, 2017 by atmn

[kevtris]

My Nt Mini are from the second restock, and having the Pin1 issue. Maybe it's this batch only that having the problem.

To bad this takes my time from using this awesone piece of hardware.

 

 

From what chip are they going, have a schematics?

Probably like you say. Bad connection from the chip.

 

Also, are the power to the USB hard-wired? Now its giving power when on standby. Are there anyhow to control it via software to just enable power on power on?

the power to USB is always-on to allow charging the controller. There's no way to turn it on/off. sorry 'bout that.

[atmn]

the power to USB is always-on to allow charging the controller. There's no way to turn it on/off. sorry 'bout that.

No problems. Make sure you map 5V on the Z3K for the analogue pal-tv-people.

 

That machine will be a absolute buy for me.

[Schizophretard]

It's not going to be possible. The reason CRT's die has more to do with the phosphors wearing out (which are toxic) and the CRT's leaded glass being toxic, to reduce x-ray emissions. To say nothing of the amount of voltage in the power supply that can kill someone. The problem is not the board, it's the CRT tube itself. You have about 50,000 hours max on a CRT or Plasma, and that translates into either 12 years of heavy usage, 6 years of 24 hour usage, or 24 years of typical usage. Usually the power supply goes BANG (and maybe lets out some smoke) before the CRT becomes too dim to use, but we're talking about the difference of a PSU failure versus the CRT tube itself inevitable becoming useless.

 

What is likely going to replace CRT's for arcades are curved "trinitron" large-pitch OLED style screens with a specialized anti-glare filter. But until someone comes up with that, the more likely things are just conventional TN-based LCD screens, with the mirror being removed from the cabinet to ensure the viewing angle is useful.

 

What would be useful, albeit limited audience would be to design a LCD/OLED driver that connects directly to the LVDS that uses the kind of line-by-line scaling found in the OSSC. That would eliminate all the latency, but the tradeoff is that it likely would only be useful for making arcade monitor replacements, since building your own LCD monitors would still involve buying the panels from LG/Samsung/Japan Display/etc

I understand that the CRT tubes have a life expectancy but I disagree that is the most common cause of most CRT TV's deaths.

 

The first TV my parents owned together was a wooden console. It was also the TV we had from most of my childhood from birth until a teenager. After work until bed my dad would watch TV. He was a couch potato then and is still one today. Anyway, that TV broke multiple times. He would have a TV repairman come over. He would bring meters, a box with what looked to be specialized equipment, vacuum tubes, etc. Then when done the TV would be like new again. It was never the tube other than maybe needing readjustments. I don't think its final death was even the tube. I think my dad just got tired of putting money into it and wanted a new one like when you finally get tired of a car. That experience taught me that TV's aren't meant to be disposable but maintained like other appliances. For an example, replacing a broken belt on a dryer.

 

Their second TV was just a big black tube. Its screen never died either. Before it got replaced the only issue it had could have been solved as simply as this:

 

 

And the only reason it was replaced was because us sons couldn't think of anything to get him for Christmas because he doesn't like stuff. But he likes TV. So, we bought him an HDTV which was only a few years ago. So, both of my family TV's never died from a dead CRT tube.

 

My first TV was some cheap I think 13" Emerson that my parents bought me for retro gaming. That was during the 16-bit era because I remember at the time my older brother had a massive SNES and NES collection while on my TV I was mainly playing pre-crash systems and SEGA Genesis. I first saw the SEGA Genesis at my older brother's friend's house. I think since my brother was a huge Nintendo collector(his past collection could put most modern day Nintendo collections to shame) his friend wanted to get on the other side of the console war. Anyway, when I first saw it I saw Sonic. It blew me away. So, I had to get a SEGA Genesis. I played it on that 13" to an extent that I would be playing Sonic in my sleep with my hands stretched out and its "HIGH DEFINITION GRAPHICS" apparently worked while sleeping because those dreams were perfect emulation.

 

That TV's tube never died either. I just ditched it after I got fascinated with this new format called DVD. At first I didn't intend to but after saving all summer for a DVD player it wouldn't work on it. It was something like my cheap VCR either lacked composite inputs, had them but for some reasons wouldn't output to RF, or it did work but didn't look as good as when I first saw Enemy of the State on DVD on someone else's TV. So, like the spoiled teen I was I begged my mom for a new TV and off to Best Buy we went. This was back when employees at Best Buy understood things. It was my first experience with the full explanation of the differences between RF, composite, and S-Video. He showed me how my DVD player has S-Video and that my best option would be a TV with S-Video. So, we left with a $500 beast with S-Video. About a year later the PS2 was launched and it kind of pissed me off that I wasted a summer saving up for a DVD player when being a PlayStation fan I now had to buy a PS2 that made my DVD player obsolete. Anyway, that TV is stored at my friend's house because I let him borrow it until he bought an HDTV and since I presently don't need it I have been leaving it there. Last time it was on it worked like new. He had one of those digital TV converters for broadcast for it and the over the air broadcast looked better than when I first watched a DVD on it.

 

A TV I got after that was a flat screen CRT that I got for the flat screen and component video. A friend sold it to me for cheap for beer money. It still works like new.

 

A few years ago I went on a CRT collecting spree. Would take them out of people's trash, flea markets, eBay, thrift stores, etc. I got a few tiny TV's like Sony Watchmans, kitchen TV's, TV's that just had interesting features to me like plastic overlays in front of the screen, some Trintrons from the 70's, etc. Some of them have issues but all of their tubes work. I have never personally seen a dead tube unless someone smashed one.

 

 

 

 

Anyway, the moral to my long story is that I believe most TV's that have ended up in landfills got there from people not calling up the TV repairman, they broke off knobs, they just wanted a new TV, it got cosmetic issues from not taking care of it, they lost the remote, etc. And in more recent times most end up in landfills because people like myself don't get to their curbs before the rain does which has more to do with their boards than tubes. In other words, people being wasteful and not taking care of their shit is the leading cause of CRT death and not dying of tube 50,000 hours old age.

 

Therefore, if someone was to design a universal FPGA board that could replace the guts of CRT's then those once TV repairmen that now restore old TV's as a hobby would have a new tool to restore them with and with people like retro gamers they would have new customers. They could pull out the old guts, add in the FPGA, wire up the tube, wire up the inputs, wire up the IR receiver for the remotes, add in more inputs, adjust the screen, etc. and then sell them as retro gaming TV's. Then they could be pushed to those 50,000 hours.

 

If retro consoles are worthy of replacement hardware then so are retro TV's to play them on.

[Wolf_]

I don't think display technology should be "preserved", only improved. If you eliminate the nostalgia factor then displays are simply a viewing experience and obviously a better viewing experience is a better overall experience. Right now crts are in a strange kind of niche space because lcd screens add a slight amount of lag, and upscalers as well as converters (often cheaply built into tvs) add a sometimes not so slight amount of lag as well. But once technology evolves and response times can match those of a crt without the chance to kill you if you don't know what you are doing with it, and at 1/80th the size I think it will be time to let go of crts.

[Schizophretard]

I don't think display technology should be "preserved", only improved. If you eliminate the nostalgia factor then displays are simply a viewing experience and obviously a better viewing experience is a better overall experience. Right now crts are in a strange kind of niche space because lcd screens add a slight amount of lag, and upscalers as well as converters (often cheaply built into tvs) add a sometimes not so slight amount of lag as well. But once technology evolves and response times can match those of a crt without the chance to kill you if you don't know what you are doing with it, and at 1/80th the size I think it will be time to let go of crts.

 

If display technology gets to a point that I can do things like play with light guns, zero lag, the CRT effects are so dead on that you could trick me to think it is a CRT, the screens get put into classy CRT like cases, etc. then I would be all for that because it would be both preserving and improving. I would still prefer to also preserve CRT's though. I agree that displays are simply a viewing experience. I prefer the viewing experience of a CRT.

[Kismet]

I understand that the CRT tubes have a life expectancy but I disagree that is the most common cause of most CRT TV's deaths.

...

 

Anyway, the moral to my long story is that I believe most TV's that have ended up in landfills got there from people not calling up the TV repairman, they broke off knobs, they just wanted a new TV, it got cosmetic issues from not taking care of it, they lost the remote, etc. And in more recent times most end up in landfills because people like myself don't get to their curbs before the rain does which has more to do with their boards than tubes. In other words, people being wasteful and not taking care of their shit is the leading cause of CRT death and not dying of tube 50,000 hours old age.

 

Therefore, if someone was to design a universal FPGA board that could replace the guts of CRT's then those once TV repairmen that now restore old TV's as a hobby would have a new tool to restore them with and with people like retro gamers they would have new customers. They could pull out the old guts, add in the FPGA, wire up the tube, wire up the inputs, wire up the IR receiver for the remotes, add in more inputs, adjust the screen, etc. and then sell them as retro gaming TV's. Then they could be pushed to those 50,000 hours.

 

If retro consoles are worthy of replacement hardware then so are retro TV's to play them on.

 

My grandparents had this wooden-box type (probably from the 70's or before, no coax) TV well past the point of needing replacement (it was only replaced because nobody wanted to put the thing in a truck and take it to their new place, as it took up more space than a chest-of-drawers.) That was replaced with a TV of roughly the same size but took up 1/4 the space and was twice as bright. Then when Grandma moved to the final place she lived, that was replaced with a 720p LCD HDTV which was even brighter. Even when you can get an old CRT off eBay (like a Commodore Composite, Tandy TGA, Sony PVM) you often are going to get one that is only half as bright as it was when it was new. People don't store those things in their original boxes, and 50,000 hours is the half-life of the phosphors brightness, or roughly the point you'd replace it. You can overdrive the brightness with the controls, but that's completely defeating the purpose of playing on a CRT. This is why no two people agree will agree on what a CRT "effect" looks like.

 

The point is that people replaced them like any other appliance up until the LCD's became so much cheaper than the CRT's. Then everyone took any opportunity to replace them to save space and now the only people with CRT's are those who took care of them. Nobody can really fix them, the people who could fix those pre-1980 TV's are all retired or deceased. Even if you could build a new board, you're not going to get anything useful out most CRT's, as I said before, CRT's power supplies (of 1990 and later units) tend to go BANG, and they are then toast. Because they are so toxic, nobody wants to fix a CRT, and even those arcade cabinets people would really prefer a better piece of technology rather than put a heavy dangerous CRT in the cabinet. There are warehouses of CRT's out there, but they're likely damaged or destroyed and in no condition to be repaired.

 

That is what I mean by they are more likely to be replaced by large pitch OLED's. You can make an OLED screen of the exact resolution you want for the game, no aspect ratio, scaler, or buffering monkey business. But there is currently no demand for that. For retrogaming at home, if you didn't keep your CRT from the 1990's, you're not going to find a large one in salvageable condition anymore. If you look on eBay right now, you will only find 13" CRT's, mostly of the VHS-combo kind. No manufacturer wants to make them, and the only demand out there for CRT's are legacy government and hospital systems that probably should be retired too.

[Wolf_]

 

If display technology gets to a point that I can do things like play with light guns, zero lag, the CRT effects are so dead on that you could trick me to think it is a CRT, the screens get put into classy CRT like cases, etc. then I would be all for that because it would be both preserving and improving. I would still prefer to also preserve CRT's though. I agree that displays are simply a viewing experience. I prefer the viewing experience of a CRT.

Light guns were designed to work on crts, it is not the fault of lcds that the technologies do not operate the same. And the makers of Bliss Box have actually got a working lightgun prototype for lcd tvs. As for crt effects... let them die. Scanlines don't "improve" an image, you just see less of how bad it is when you cover up literally half the screen. And if you really have that nostalgia craving for seeing half an image scanline generators are a thing and come built into the nt mini and xrgb mini. As far as I'm concerned the only improvements we need to make to lcds are the response time, and to get them to the highest resolution and fps the human eye can detect and then display technology (for screens anyways) will have peaked.

[Kismet]

I don't think display technology should be "preserved", only improved. If you eliminate the nostalgia factor then displays are simply a viewing experience and obviously a better viewing experience is a better overall experience. Right now crts are in a strange kind of niche space because lcd screens add a slight amount of lag, and upscalers as well as converters (often cheaply built into tvs) add a sometimes not so slight amount of lag as well. But once technology evolves and response times can match those of a crt without the chance to kill you if you don't know what you are doing with it, and at 1/80th the size I think it will be time to let go of crts.

 

 

For the Arcade, nothing but a 30" CRT gives the "correct" view and play performance. However I believe OLED's (as much as I hate them) can fill this need since we're not asking for 4K OLED smartTV's, we're asking for just a low-resolution LVDS panel and a driver PCB that behaves like a freesync panel. It almost seems like finding a driver PCB without framebuffering is the real problem.

 

For the Console/computer what we want is a "TV" with no "smart" bits in it at all, basically a freesync-enabled computer screen that can run at any refresh rate thrown at it.

 

You only want a monitor of the exact resolution needed for that machine, or at least one that integer scales with the correct aspect ratio on a line-by-line basis, not a framebuffer basis.

 

As for light guns and 3D glasses. Those likely would not be supported without a specialized screen that can do unbuffered "freesync" (freesync goes between 30hz and 144hz, though no indication if it supports weird Nintendo 60.08) to the needed refresh rate.

[Schizophretard]

As for crt effects... let them die.

No thanks. By CRT effects I don't just mean scanlines but the entire appearance. In my opinion, retro games look graphically better on CRT's.