FPGA Based Videogame System

[Keatah]

It does.

[Andromeda Stardust]

To make life easy, I have edited the first post of this thread to reflect the latest goings-on. I will keep the first post updated as things develop and cores get ported or made. Eventually it will contain all the Z3K information too when the time comes. Hope this helps everyone out!

Thanks for the mega update.

 

One question: will you support the use of Super Game Boy enhancements and borders on the Game Boy games? A lot of emulators now, including Goomba for the GBA flash cart, support both Game Boy Color and Super Game Boy color pallets on enhanced games. Sometimes they even enable the SGB borders in Game Boy Color mode.

 

Is this possible, or does it require a full SNES core plus the GB core to work? I'm not expecting miracles like Space Invaders arcade mode, but partial support, ie displaying the borders and enhanced pallets on SGB enhanced games would be nice, with user provided SGB BIOS of course.

[kevtris]

Thanks for the mega update.

 

One question: will you support the use of Super Game Boy enhancements and borders on the Game Boy games? A lot of emulators now, including Goomba for the GBA flash cart, support both Game Boy Color and Super Game Boy color pallets on enhanced games. Sometimes they even enable the SGB borders in Game Boy Color mode.

 

Is this possible, or does it require a full SNES core plus the GB core to work? I'm not expecting miracles like Space Invaders arcade mode, but partial support, ie displaying the borders and enhanced pallets on SGB enhanced games would be nice, with user provided SGB BIOS of course.

I wanted to wait until I had SNES to do super gameboy since it'd be all "automatic" and I wouldn't have to do extra work. It's a lot cleaner and should just work.

[cacophony]

@kevtris, I know you likely don't want to talk about the specifics of your new contract work, but ... can you confirm my hope/theory that the work will ultimately be of some benefit to the Z3k ?

[Keatah]

Kev, do you have any idea of the physical styling of the Z3K? Neo-neuvo modern? Classic 70's stuff? What sort of decor it will look good in, that sort of thing?

[Wolf_]

Kev, do you have any idea of the physical styling of the Z3K? Neo-neuvo modern? Classic 70's stuff? What sort of decor it will look good in, that sort of thing?

Personally I hope it is similar to the Nt mini. Very modern and sleek. Love me some black anodized aluminum. Hopefully it isn't a high gloss fingerprint and dust magnet whatever it is though.

[Keatah]

Ohh gosh no. No plastic ipod-like finish, or glossy USB HDD finish, both of which develop scratches when light rays hit the wrong way! Textured-matte plastic isn't too bad however.

 

Something heavy would be nice. And if that means aluminum then that means aluminum!

 

We've decided on getting two of these. Z3k that is.. One for me and one for the wife. While we could swap units from room to room, that would be annoying. Between this and the suite of software emulators we've curated we'll have full in-depth coverage of all (proper) classic game consoles.

 

It's been years since we added any new gaming hardware, aside from swapping/updating the PCs and the occasional load of Apple II material. It's a rare occasion.

Edited March 20, 2017 by Keatah

[kevtris]

Kev, do you have any idea of the physical styling of the Z3K? Neo-neuvo modern? Classic 70's stuff? What sort of decor it will look good in, that sort of thing?

 

I don't know what kind of enclosure it will be. Before I think about the enclosure, I need a Z3K :-) Kind of opposite of the RGVS. At first I will most likely have a laser cut enclosure of some form most likely since it's cheap. Though it might be possible to do injection molding if the volume will be there. It's all up in the air until some working hardware is ready.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Kev, do you have any idea of the physical styling of the Z3K? Neo-neuvo modern? Classic 70's stuff? What sort of decor it will look good in, that sort of thing?

A case made out of clear acrylic would do. Maybe have the option of clear acrylic or black gloss opaque. And have some basic branding logos etched in.

 

Oh, and a special LE version with wood panels instead of acrylic, kinda like the retrobuiltgames guy does. I dunno why, I just like aesthetic of wood, tehe, and running plywood panels through the laser plotter would actually be a bit cheaper in material cost than acrylic. Stain optional.

 

Also sell it in kit form at reduced cost for those of us DIY types!

[+eebuckeye]

Zippy uses bog standard 64kbyte bankswitch. 16 banks of 4kb each, swapped by reading one of 16 bytes near the end of the ROM to switch banks. It is a textbook extension of the standard 32k bankswitch scheme which many 32kb homebrews use. Stella's Stocking was the first game to use this mapper. It do not run on the original Harmony cart due to the 32kb limit, but it runs on the Encore.

 

Sadly the ARM (DCP+) and newer "bus stuffing" homebrews as you mentioned won't work, but should run on a Harmony cart connected via cart adapter.

 

I guess I'm confused why it would work with the Harmony cart and not the NT Mini SD rom load? Does this mean the core is not quite equivalent?

[Wolf_]

 

I guess I'm confused why it would work with the Harmony cart and not the NT Mini SD rom load? Does this mean the core is not quite equivalent?

It means the cart is not equivalent to the actual system/carts which is why the core doesn't support it. I would guess that support for the cart should be possible to add though.

[+eebuckeye]

I'm sure that makes sense to most people but I'm still confused.

[Wolf_]

I'm sure that makes sense to most people but I'm still confused.

The harmony cart is better than any atari cart, the Nt mini duplicates the functions of the regular system and carts so it doesn't have the enhanced features. That being said the harmony cart shouldn't be so advanced the nt mini can't be updated to function in a similar way. Or at least that is what I would bet.

[+eebuckeye]

Ok.. that makes sense.. The only question I have then is that the Frogger cart (for example) needs a particular extension for the NT Mini to recognize it. The rom dump works on the harmony and I thought it was just an unaltered rom dump with no changes.

[rezb1t]

Ok.. that makes sense.. The only question I have then is that the Frogger cart (for example) needs a particular extension for the NT Mini to recognize it. The rom dump works on the harmony and I thought it was just an unaltered rom dump with no changes.

Game cartridges are often not just a chip with the rom on it, they also usually have mapping hardware and sometimes other specialized hardware. All changing the extension does is inform the NT Mini what cartridge board needs to be used to load the ROM.

 

Why does the Harmony work then? It likely uses a rom checksum to identify whether it needs a mapper. This means less work if you just want to put it on an SD card and play, but it is a brittle approach because if you change a single byte, the rom won't work anymore. I prefer kevtris' method because it means the NT mini won't necessarily need updating to support new homebrew, as long as it uses an existing cartridge board.

Edited March 20, 2017 by rezb1t

[Katsu]

So now that my RGB Cable is fixed, I just posted a quick and dirty video of the RGB output of the Nt mini Vs. an NESRGB modded NES. Caveat: The video capturing wasn't ideal, but you still get a good idea of the differences.

 

https://youtu.be/VOF7_befl-A

[TheRedEye]

 

It finishes the "loading rom" dialogue, and never starts the "loading bios" dialogue. It does this with both versions of the BIOS file I've located, and only Gamate does this (though I've not tested Coleco or either GB).

 

I can also force it to load if I change BIOS instead of "reloading" the core. Reset on the controller does nothing when it's in that frozen state.

 

EDIT: Sent you a video

 

By the way, my Gamate loading bug has resolved itself at some point, it works as expected in the latest FW.

[Jaycf]

I was just wondering, how do I remove the jail break? I couldn't find any discussion on it.

[phoenixdownita]

I was just wondering, how do I remove the jail break? I couldn't find any discussion on it.

Kevtris said just to reload the original fw, as long as the versions are different (and they are) there's no problem to move back and forth.

Give it a try!!!

[killersquirel]

The harmony cart has an arm processor in it that basically sends out program info to the Atari. In order for it to work via sd loading, the Atari 2600 core would also have to "emulate" the Arm processor.

 

If there is a cart adapter made for the mini nt, then the arm processor in the cartridge would still do all of the processing it normally does and the nt mini can act like the Atari 2600 system does and everything will just work.

Edited March 20, 2017 by killersquirel

[+eebuckeye]

Ahh.. thanks for all the details!

[killersquirel]

Future request:

 

Can you add the number buttons that the famicom hvc-051 controller has to all the cores that might need it, such as the channel f for the front number buttons. It would be cool if you can also make it work for the 2600 and 7800 cores as well so that the numbers can represent the difficulty switches, reset, game select, game start, and pause options that are on the console themselves?

[rezb1t]

Bug report and some follow ups on other reports:

 

There's an MMC5 romhack called Legend of Link that doesn't seem to save correctly, the game works perfectly other than that, but if you save in game, then save ram to file, then reload the rom, it doesn't keep the saves. Might be something with the rom hack, but the author said it worked on an MMC5 cartridge. I'll send a PM with the rom!

 

 

 

I tested out Dragon Buster II for Famicom, it does crash consistently if you just let the title play out. I pressed start immediately after booting up and managed to get ingame, but if you enter any of the dungeon areas by pressing select, the graphics inside of them get pretty messed up and it's difficult to see where you are going.

 

It works perfectly for me on the Everdrive N8 on the NT Mini, I played 2 dungeons in and saw no graphical issues or weirdness going on.

 

 

 

Finally, was also able to test Sangokushi II - Hanou No Tairiku, it crashes on load with the NES core on the NT Mini but the Everdrive N8 plays it on the NT Mini perfectly, from what I can tell.

Edited March 20, 2017 by rezb1t

[Jaycf]

Kevtris said just to reload the original fw, as long as the versions are different (and they are) there's no problem to move back and forth.

Give it a try!!!

 

Thank you.

[atmn]

Bug report and some follow ups on other reports:

 

There's an MMC5 romhack called Legend of Link that doesn't seem to save correctly, the game works perfectly other than that, but if you save in game, then save ram to file, then reload the rom, it doesn't keep the saves. Might be something with the rom hack, but the author said it worked on an MMC5 cartridge. I'll send a PM with the rom!

 

Had issues with this on real hardware aswell, never got it to work. Needs huge sram amount. I have given up on this hack in saving point of view.

Have not tested it as rom on the Nt tho.