UltraHDMI - HDMI Upgrade Kit for the Nintendo 64

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citrus3000psi
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Re: UltraHDMI - HDMI Upgrade Kit for the Nintendo 64

Post by citrus3000psi »

unmaker wrote:
citrus3000psi wrote:
creib wrote: ooo interesting, any more info about how you did the install? an alt board location? do you mean keeping the clock wire short?

was hoping to tackle a timRGB and ultraHDMi myself once the preorders ship

thanks!
I mount the board on the bottom of the motherboard:

(This is one of tim's early revisions, so it doesn't have pads for the PAD / RESET)
In this pic the clock signal is taken from the top of the motherboard, but its better to grab it from the bottom. There is a via that is just south of the board. Also before I put the case on, I put a piece of foam on the FPGA to make sure it does not come loose.

Image
That's just my own little QSB I use. Helps make installs look cleaner.

What is that purple PCB on the multi out? I don't think that's included with Tim's kit?
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Link83
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Re: UltraHDMI - HDMI Upgrade Kit for the Nintendo 64

Post by Link83 »

citrus3000psi wrote:
unmaker wrote: What is that purple PCB on the multi out? I don't think that's included with Tim's kit?
That's just my own little QSB I use. Helps make installs look cleaner.
Thats a nice little QSB, might it be available on your OSH park?
(Also it looks like it has 3 resistors on it?)
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citrus3000psi
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Re: UltraHDMI - HDMI Upgrade Kit for the Nintendo 64

Post by citrus3000psi »

Link83 wrote:
citrus3000psi wrote:
unmaker wrote: What is that purple PCB on the multi out? I don't think that's included with Tim's kit?
That's just my own little QSB I use. Helps make installs look cleaner.
Thats a nice little QSB, might it be available on your OSH park?
(Also it looks like it has 3 resistors on it?)
I'll share it in a few. The resistors in that image are 0 ohm. Thy are there for extra control of whatever might come up as they were just test boards for me.
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BuckoA51
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Re: UltraHDMI - HDMI Upgrade Kit for the Nintendo 64

Post by BuckoA51 »

Wondering if anyone can help us with an issue with an install on a PAL nus cpu 02? We've installed several of these before, but this one is acting very strangely. Basically the N64s image is shifted down vertically, about 1/4th of the way and the bottom part is cut off.

The menu, when called up using the controller, is still in the centre of the screen however.

We've tried swapping out the board for another one but the problem persists.

The consoles composite output seems to work fine.

Sorry the picture is not great but it should give you the general idea:-

Imageproblematic-n64-hdmi by videogameperfection, on Flickr
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Woozle
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Re: UltraHDMI - HDMI Upgrade Kit for the Nintendo 64

Post by Woozle »

Has anyone noticed that the image shifts right when enabling scanlines on the UltraHDMI? Has that been fixed in newer a firmware update? I'm running firmware 1.07a on my UltraHDMI.

Guessing there's an extra register in the scanline video path, seems like it would be easy to align.
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BuckoA51
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Re: UltraHDMI - HDMI Upgrade Kit for the Nintendo 64

Post by BuckoA51 »

Anyone play PAL games and noticed really bad audio crackling in some titles? The game Dual Heroes sounds a right mess, for instance.
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Link83
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Re: UltraHDMI - HDMI Upgrade Kit for the Nintendo 64

Post by Link83 »

BuckoA51 wrote:Anyone play PAL games and noticed really bad audio crackling in some titles? The game Dual Heroes sounds a right mess, for instance.
Are you perhaps playing PAL games on an NTSC N64 console?
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BuckoA51
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Re: UltraHDMI - HDMI Upgrade Kit for the Nintendo 64

Post by BuckoA51 »

Nope, PAL on PAL in this instance.
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citrus3000psi
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Re: UltraHDMI - HDMI Upgrade Kit for the Nintendo 64

Post by citrus3000psi »

BuckoA51 wrote:Anyone play PAL games and noticed really bad audio crackling in some titles? The game Dual Heroes sounds a right mess, for instance.
The symptoms sound like noisy audio lines lines. The analog hardware datasheets for the hdmi transmitter recommend you have series resistors close to the input.

Why its effecting only this console and not others, I can't really say. Only that not all IC's are created equal.

There are things you could try, but not sure if you want to hack up the n64 hdmi board.
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Re: UltraHDMI - HDMI Upgrade Kit for the Nintendo 64

Post by meneerbeer »

I have some serious doubts about that. The audio from the N64 first goes to the FPGA for processing and then from the FPGA to the HDMI transmitter. There should not be that much trouble with noise from the FPGA to the transmitter.

I think the culprit is the audio processing done by the FPGA. I have seen multiple problems being reported about it. I think Marshallh has also updated the audio processing part at least once. I can give this game a try on my PAL N64 with UltraHDMI if interested.
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BuckoA51
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Re: UltraHDMI - HDMI Upgrade Kit for the Nintendo 64

Post by BuckoA51 »

Yeah I'd definitely be interested. Marshall says he'll give it a try too.
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citrus3000psi
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Re: UltraHDMI - HDMI Upgrade Kit for the Nintendo 64

Post by citrus3000psi »

The audio lines go straight to the hdmi transmitter, not the fpga. Now the fpga is connected via i2c to the transmitter. So you can adjust some minor settings, like CTS mode etc. but def do not have control over the incoming signals.
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Re: UltraHDMI - HDMI Upgrade Kit for the Nintendo 64

Post by meneerbeer »

Pretty sure that is not true. Afaik the FPGA first processes the incoming audio to convert it to a standard fixed sample rate. I have not verified if this is actually the case, but it should be. Most N64 games do not use standardized samplerates and according to Marshallh they may even change during the same game.

If you are still saying the audio goes straight to the transmitter, I would expect that you have actually verified that this is the case by examining the PCB. :)
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Re: UltraHDMI - HDMI Upgrade Kit for the Nintendo 64

Post by CZroe »

BuckoA51 wrote:Anyone play PAL games and noticed really bad audio crackling in some titles? The game Dual Heroes sounds a right mess, for instance.
1.07A was supposed to fix crackles or pops in the audio on some installations. IIRC, MarshallH said it was due to a variance in FFC production and not a variance in the consoles but I’d have to go back to see where he might have said that.
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Re: UltraHDMI - HDMI Upgrade Kit for the Nintendo 64

Post by nmalinoski »

meneerbeer wrote:Most N64 games do not use standardized samplerates and according to Marshallh they may even change during the same game.
This seems to be the case with Top Gear Rally. Most of the emulators I've tried to play it on seem to be incapable of fully emulating the audio; either I get audio in the menu with one setting on the audio module, or I get audio in gameplay using a different setting, but never both (unless something has changed in the past year or two). I know this was also the case with at least one other game, but its name escapes me.
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Re: UltraHDMI - HDMI Upgrade Kit for the Nintendo 64

Post by CZroe »

nmalinoski wrote:
meneerbeer wrote:Most N64 games do not use standardized samplerates and according to Marshallh they may even change during the same game.
This seems to be the case with Top Gear Rally. Most of the emulators I've tried to play it on seem to be incapable of fully emulating the audio; either I get audio in the menu with one setting on the audio module, or I get audio in gameplay using a different setting, but never both (unless something has changed in the past year or two). I know this was also the case with at least one other game, but its name escapes me.
Pretty sure that one plays MP3s. I recall seeing the credits mention the MP3 player programmer. Tony Hawk used an N64 MP3 player too.

Must be something about the way they encoded it to be super-low bit rate.
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hemipode
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Re: UltraHDMI - HDMI Upgrade Kit for the Nintendo 64

Post by hemipode »

Sorry for posting on such an old thread, but didn't find another where the audio issues were discussed.
Did anyone figure out what was wrong regarding the faint crackles? I hooked up headphones and they became very apparent. Super annoying
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Re: UltraHDMI - HDMI Upgrade Kit for the Nintendo 64

Post by Syntax »

hemipode wrote:Sorry for posting on such an old thread, but didn't find another where the audio issues were discussed.
Did anyone figure out what was wrong regarding the faint crackles? I hooked up headphones and they became very apparent. Super annoying
Does the crackling change depending on the music or controller inputs?
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hemipode
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Re: UltraHDMI - HDMI Upgrade Kit for the Nintendo 64

Post by hemipode »

Tried both original controller, hori and brawler. Different cables, two different tvs. Doesn't make a difference.

To my ears it becomes more evident in music with low register, dark and bassy sounds. (For example the bass in Starfox 64's menu music)
Some games are more affected than others. One that really stuck out to me was Doom 64. The background music itself is plagued by this crackling, faint popping sound (while sound fx play crisp and clean)

It's strange since FirebrandX writes this over at the Doomworld forum: "Doom 64 looks MUCH better via UltraHDMI, and on top of that, the audio is now clean with ZERO electromagnetic noise or cross-talk interference (this is something that plagues the analog audio of N64 consoles). "

Edit: I don't have any rgb mod installed. And the mention of low frequency can probably be a bit misleading.
It seem to be something with how music and sounds are compressed, bitrate or something like that.
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Syntax
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Re: UltraHDMI - HDMI Upgrade Kit for the Nintendo 64

Post by Syntax »

I've never installed one but I just looked at the installation instructions.

Seems they use the N64 3.3v power rail.
That's a big no no. The N64 has a notoriously dirty power supply on the 3.3v line.

I highly suggest adding a small 3.3v LDO and using that to power the ultrahdmi
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Re: UltraHDMI - HDMI Upgrade Kit for the Nintendo 64

Post by nmalinoski »

Syntax wrote:I've never installed one but I just looked at the installation instructions.

Seems they use the N64 3.3v power rail.
That's a big no no. The N64 has a notoriously dirty power supply on the 3.3v line.

I highly suggest adding a small 3.3v LDO and using that to power the ultrahdmi
I take it the UltraHDMI assumes the 3.3V rail on that side of the capacitor is clean? Does it make sense to try to clean the 3.3V rail closer to the PSU than just the UltraHDMI? Does something similar need to be done with the 5V rail?

If anyone wants to suggest a part or put together a little mod board, and can give me one or more games that are confirmed crackling that I can test with, I have no qualms opening my N64 back up and testing an LDO on the 3.3v line.
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Syntax
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Re: UltraHDMI - HDMI Upgrade Kit for the Nintendo 64

Post by Syntax »

Borti made a little LDO board that mounts to the switch vias.
My attempts to clean 3.3v were in vain so making a new 3.3v source made sense.

It cleans visual AC interference from Tim's n64rgb kits. Bortis kits run off 5v so there is no issue.
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Re: UltraHDMI - HDMI Upgrade Kit for the Nintendo 64

Post by borti4938 »

Should not be a problem. As far as I know - I neither don't have the schematic nor an UltraHDMI board anymore - the FPGA is on 3.3V and the HDMI-transmitter on the 5V power rail.
I guess the problem is the connection between UltraHDMI and the N64 - the interconnection cable is still not properly designed!

The other open question is if this is related to the implementation itself. If the design were open sourced, one would be able to look into the whole audio processing implementation details. The N64 outputs something around 22kHz IIRC (which is also game dependent), however the UltraHDMI uses 48kHz. This is not a big deal (I've implemented it by my own, too) but also it might be something wrong in here, too.
nmalinoski
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Re: UltraHDMI - HDMI Upgrade Kit for the Nintendo 64

Post by nmalinoski »

Is it just me/my configuration, or is Direct Mode Yes+Sync missing from firmware 1.08?
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