Super SD System 3

[Wolf_]

What's not helping him is posting schematics and red outlines to what the problems are in the design. ESPECIALLY in a public forum. If Voultar really wanted to help, he would have emailed that discussion to him in private. But it seems he gets a kick out of showing how smart he is, and how stupid everyone else is.

Now you've gone from being silly to just nefarious.

I never said you were retarded, and I never said you were a cunt. You should probably read a little bit slower. What you said was a dig directed to me, and I found it to be asinine and completely useless to the ongoing efforts, here. Criticizing something that you said isn't casting a direct insult, to you.

And Jesus christ with the inferiority complex of "I'm smarter than everyone". Everyone here wants to learn things, including me. I understand that you're probably not very technical, but throughout the hardware section of this forum, we exchange idea's and help each other openly, all the time around here. 1CHIP ghosting would've never been resolved, otherwise. You have a terrible tendency of putting words into peoples mouths. Several people in this thread have made technical suggestions, good ones, too. If you're serious with that line of bullshit that people are helping just to make other people feel stupid, that's your own prerogative, don't slap that shit onto me or anyone else.

I didn't say people, I said if you really wanted to help, you'd PM him in private to help resolve the issues rather than going on a know-it-all rampage on neo-geo showing schematics and giving EE explanations. Your actions are way more nefarious than mine, pal.

How is it nefarious showing a struggling company how to fix the issues they are having panic attacks about while the internet attacks them? (This makes the second fix he's donated to them)

It sounds to me like you simply don't like him so you want him to be a bad guy. Sure maybe he has an attitude but if you look at what he's actually done he's only helped. And if you look at what you've done all you've done is say he's a bad person because he helped people but he didn't do it in a way you would have liked.

Neither of you is nefarious but it is pretty obvious which one of you is a child.

[opt2not]

Or...perhaps it's your timing that's off? Did you even consider writing him in private? The guy just had a meltdown and is on the brink of calling it quits, then you go and bust out that big brain of yours, shoving it back in his face. Please tell me how that's helping him right now.

[Gara]

I didn't say people, I said if you really wanted to help, you'd PM him in private to help resolve the issues rather than going on a know-it-all rampage on neo-geo showing schematics and giving EE explanations. Your actions are way more nefarious than mine, pal.

You make Neosd sound like an approachable kind of guy. What would have been the benefit of keeping this all private and away from the customer base? I'm not making fun. I am genuinely curious why you think this would have been better off in private. Their track record for handling problems seem to be it's not an issue until the entire community is talking about it. Problems are answered with "thank you for your comments" Heck he has openly stated he won't even respond to PMs.

[Voultar]

Or...perhaps it's your timing that's off? Did you even consider writing him in private? The guy just had a meltdown and is on the brink of calling it quits, then you go and bust out that big brain of yours, shoving it back in his face. Please tell me how that's helping him right now.

Just stop. This is beyond the point of embarrassing. If you can't see that everyone is working to have a better understanding of this stuff so that we can all help each other, then this conversation isn't for you and it's not worth the labor of explaining to you what's happening and why people are throwing idea's and explanations into the pot. Just keep on thinking whatever non-sense that you want to think. It's all a conspiracy to make whoever "feel"bad so I can feel "super smart". Is this fucking high-school? I'm not any smarter or better than anyone here.

I'm losing brain-cells with this engagement.

[ShootTheCore]

Or...perhaps it's your timing that's off? Did you even consider writing him in private? The guy just had a meltdown and is on the brink of calling it quits, then you go and bust out that big brain of yours, shoving it back in his face. Please tell me how that's helping him right now.

Just in terms of setting the record straight, Voultar did contact TerraOnion and discussed it with their lead engineer before saying anything about the capacitor publicly:

https://twitter.com/Voultar/status/981144932118343680

[opt2not]

You make Neosd sound like an approachable kind of guy.

I've exchanged emails and facebook messages with him, and he's always been polite and cool overall. From my experience, yeah I'd say he's approachable.

Just stop. This is beyond the point of embarrassing. If you can't see that everyone is working to have a better understanding of this stuff so that can help each other, then this conversation isn't for you and it's not worth the labor of explaining to you what's happening and why people are throwing idea's and explanations into the pot. Just keep on thinking whatever non-sense that you want to think. It's all a conspiracy to make whoever "feel"bad so I can feel "super smart". Is this fucking high-school? I'm not any smarter or better than anyone here.

I'm losing brain-cells with this engagement.

Well I'm not embarrassed, but perhaps I'm too stupid to know that, right? Sorry my opinions and discussions with you strain your mass intellect, I'm just simple artist that enjoys playing games from my youth. I'll stick to that, and you carry-on with making the world smarter, one embarrassing peon at a time eh? good day to you.

[Voultar]

You make Neosd sound like an approachable kind of guy.

I've exchanged emails and facebook messages with him, and he's always been polite and cool overall. From my experience, yeah I'd say he's approachable.

Just stop. This is beyond the point of embarrassing. If you can't see that everyone is working to have a better understanding of this stuff so that can help each other, then this conversation isn't for you and it's not worth the labor of explaining to you what's happening and why people are throwing idea's and explanations into the pot. Just keep on thinking whatever non-sense that you want to think. It's all a conspiracy to make whoever "feel"bad so I can feel "super smart". Is this fucking high-school? I'm not any smarter or better than anyone here.

I'm losing brain-cells with this engagement.

Well I'm not embarrassed, but perhaps I'm too stupid to know that, right? Sorry my opinions and discussions with you strain your mass intellect, I'm just simple artist that enjoys playing games from my youth. I'll stick to that, and you carry-on with making the world smarter, one embarrassing peon at a time eh? good day to you.

It's embarrassing that you're making irrational assessments and calling my actions "nefarious" without knowing anything of what I've done to help them or what conversations I've had with them. Sorry, but that would embarrass me and I would want to remedy that situation. And there you go again with that inferiority complex.

[cr4zymanz0r]

I didn't say people, I said if you really wanted to help, you'd PM him in private to help resolve the issues rather than going on a know-it-all rampage on neo-geo showing schematics and giving EE explanations. Your actions are way more nefarious than mine, pal.

Know-it-all rampage? That's how you interpret people trying to be informative? I find "Here's what correct and here's why it's correct" much more useful than "Here's what correct, but I'm not going to explain anything. Just trust me." I mean really, how are you being constructive to the conversation? Most of us are talking about issues/troubleshooting/ideas etc. Even when a lot of us have been asked for our opinion on the SSDS3 we haven't been shit bashing it, we've just been giving honest opinions that the ODE works well, RGB is probably fine for a lot of people but if you pretty particular about RGB quality then you might be disappointed. I feel like lot of people are going full on moronic. "OMG, they have a problem with the RGB video and I DON'T. How dare they besmirch the great TerraOnion who should be immune from being critiqued. Just shut up and play your games!". I mean really, at this point I'm fairly convinced you're just trolling.

[Gara]

I've exchanged emails and facebook messages with him, and he's always been polite and cool overall. From my experience, yeah I'd say he's approachable.

That's cool. I've heard from a couple others he is decent guy in direct communication or through chat. His public persona makes him look pretty bad. I didn't want anything to do with Terraonion initially after reading his posts but some members here gave me some context in private messages. He really needs someone else handling the unwashed so he can go back to being a decent fellow.

[FriendofSonic]

I too am getting the SD card noise... Which is odd and I'll be curious on its resolution, if they decide to comment on it.

I'm using Csync on a PVM 20L5 so picture seems fine to me. It's a little disappointing that the picture may hurt if I ever upscale on a flat panel but it seems like the OSCC may help some with the LPF filter

[FBX]

I'll be the first to admit it right out in the open: The guys on the Retro Roundtable (Voultar, Rene, Ste, Nick, and thumb-Bob), as well as other chaps like Borti, viletim, Fudoh, Ace, Extrems, etc., are WAY smarter than I am. I want to squeeze their brains of information as much as possible, and if they are willing to share it, I want to know it. Maybe this makes me a nut-swinger of sorts, but I consider it invaluable information for our hobby/passion of retro-gaming, and it doesn't cost tuition.

[SavagePencil]

So far they have refused to comment on the SD buzz. Hopefully we can find a workaround.

[elevengames]

So far they have refused to comment on the SD buzz. Hopefully we can find a workaround.

neosd on the NG forums mentioned they are going to work on reducing the audio noise via a software update. It got buried with all of today's drama. See post #1902 here: http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/showthrea ... 17)/page77

[charlie chong]

i think customers have a right to know that capacitors have been installed backwards on a product they are paying money for and what the implications could be.. it's surely not that hard to understand that it's not a good thing if your happy with buying faulty products because you don't want to upset the manufacturer that is your choice

[D]

Some people here need to stop saying 'just play the games'. For you I say why are you even reading this thread? Stop wasting thread space with these comments. My whole comment right here is also wasting space by the way.
When you are an expert it is very annoying when companies put out hardware that is not 100% perfect.
These experts are letting us know about the faults and we should be thanking them (thanks guys!). It has already lead to an improved product.
Really strange to put all the time and effort into a great product like this and then not make the output video and audio 100% perfect.

For potential buyers who are holding off their purchase I can say that while not 100% perfect yet, it is already really great and you will get alot of enjoyment out of this product. I have not really noticed any issues yet, but I have not really looked for them yet. I'm sure the are issues.

[Gara]

Some people here need to stop saying 'just play the games'. For you I say why are you even reading this thread? Stop wasting thread space with these comments. My whole comment right here is also wasting space by the way.
When you are an expert it is very annoying when companies put out hardware that is not 100% perfect.
These experts are letting us know about the faults and we should be thanking them (thanks guys!). It has already lead to an improved product.
Really strange to put all the time and effort into a great product like this and then not make the output video and audio 100% perfect.

For potential buyers who are holding off their purchase I can say that while not 100% perfect yet, it is already really great and you will get alot of enjoyment out of this product. I have not really noticed any issues yet, but I have not really looked for them yet. I'm sure the are issues.

I'm with you on that one. It started with neosd taking shots at the people bringing up issues. He took the position that everyone should just shut up and play the games and to stop over analyzing their boards. Put down your scopes and just play it. Now the whole community is parroting it to anyone with a problem.

If all we wanted was to play games we would all be rocking emulatiors. Im spending over $500 for a supergrafx and the super system. For that much time and money I want it darn near perfect. The pursuit of perfection can be just as fun as playing.

[Ninjatemper]

I got my Super SD System 3 in today and posted this over on the Neo Geo forums since the devs are more active there, but thought I'd share here as well since this forum is generally more inclined to discuss technical details. Here's my copy/paste:

Ok, the package did end up being my Super SD System 3 and I've been toying with it this evening.
I'm going to give a 'quick' review with my findings starting with the summary.

Summary: From my small testing and playtime tonight I'd say most people will probably be happy with the Super SD System 3 (SSDS3). However, if you are an audiophile or videophile you might run into some annoyances.

Test setup:
1.) PC-Engine Duo-R with mickcris RGB amp (for comparison)
2.) Core Grafx (recapped, region modded)
3.) US Turbo Grafx 16 (stock, no repairs or mods)
4.) Genesis model 1 power supply
5.) Random modern switching (3 amp) power supply that runs all my other retro consoles without issue
6.) Packapunch Genesis 2 csync SCART cable
7.) Genesis 2 to RGB break-out box (RCA connectors). Uses csync, gives me flawless video on my Genesis 2 (that's been modded some to get rid of jailbars).
8.) Open Source Scan Converter (OSSC)
9.) Random $100 Vizio sound bar for sound

Sound: I'll start with sound since it'll be a shorter section. The CD audio isn't as good as it is playing from the disc on my Duo-R. Now I'm not an audiophile, so it's not like I have some super expensive sound setup and can tell if something is 1% off. From my very limited testing time the only thing I've noticed so far is the intro for the US version of Ys: Book 1 & 2 when you first boot it up. There's a lot of bass at the beginning, and then when the narrator starts talking he has kind of a deep voice that hits the bass too. On my Duo-R everything sounds clear and normal. On the SSDS3 in that scene it sounds like the bass is overdriven. This kinda distorts and muddies it, sorta like you're trying to go higher than your speakers can handle (except I didn't really have the volume cranked up). I don't really consider it subtle difference. I also ripped my original disc myself with TurboRip and also played back the .wav file on my PC to make sure it wasn't being distorted in the ripping process.

Video: Ok, I did 99% of this testing on with my OSSC on a 55" 4K TV. If you feed a good clean RGB signal to it from pretty much any retro console it looks phenomenal. Now I'm seeing some moving diagonal line interference similar to pictures and videos I saw of the initial release of the SSDS3, but not nearly as prominent.

Now by default the OSSC has a low pass filter (LPF) on for incoming video signals. I generally never turn it off except when I'm messing around or want to see how clean a RGB signal is. When I turn it off on my consoles with 'perfect' RGB it'll let a little bit of interference show up, but it's minor.

Now I tried to take some pictures with my phone that didn't exactly come out the best, but here they are: https://imgur.com/a/j6Ul1
Since it's not always clear I'll kinda walk through the tests too.

1.) Tested with a hucard on my Duo-R. The darker green in the Dungeon Explorer title logo seems to be the most prominent place for potential interference. Things look crystal clear on the Duo with the OSSC's LPF on (the default setting). With the LPF off I see typical minor noise in the signal

2.) Tested with a hucard with SSDS3. It's not as clean as my Duo-R but not too bad. Turning off the LPF shows more noise than the Duo-R, but nothing stupid crazy.

3.) Tested the same game with the SSDS3 but loaded from the microSD card. Now I was seeing the moving diagonal lines in the green. Again, not as bad as the initial release of the SSDS3, but enough to be an annoyance if you're a videophile.
Now, turning off the LPF makes it look god awful. there's a bunch of static snow looking noise that I've never seen before on any other system with the LPF off.

Conclusion: I got the same results no matter what power cable I used or what video cable I used. It also didn't really change between me using a Core Grafx or a US TurboGrafx 16.

I'm not saying these are the definitive results and I'd be happy to give further info or help troubleshoot. However, given the various different scenarios I've tried it, I don't really think it's some fluke of me just having a potentially bad cable. I probably won't have time to REALLY dig into it hard until the weekend.

I'm reserving any judgement until other technical people get to really dig into this, as well as TerraOnion potentially getting to look into it as well (maybe the CD sound/bass issue could be fixed in a firmware patch?).

Just got my SSDS3 last night and my results were very similar, but the noise in the video signal with the OSSC lpf turned off is much worse than what's captured in cr4zymanz0r's pictures. I was surprised to see that much noise in the signal after the PCB was revised to specifically address that issue - I thought maybe I had been accidentally shipped one of the first revision PCB's, but I doubt that's the case.

On top of that, the OSSC keeps losing lock on sync. I'm using a CSYNC cable from Retro Gaming Cables that works perfectly with the DB Grafx Booster so I know it's not the cable or anything else in my setup. The loss of sync lock is making the product impossible to use and enjoy. I should note that everything else I hook up to the OSSC works beautifully with no sync issues at all.

Are these sync drops being experienced by anyone else? Perhaps it's a simple setting I can change on the OSSC to fix the issue?

[Xyga]

No worries people, soon someone will make a little audio/video amp-filter addon board for the SSDS3, it'll be easy to install, cheap, and fix everything noise/buzz related.


--

Regarding the drama, I think Terraonion should just make a statement that the device can show more or less video noise and buzzing sound depending on one's NEC system, cables & psu, displays and scalers/receivers, and be done with the discussions.

And study the customer complaints/requests individually in private with them.

Also they should reserve the right to make modifications on the product in the future, making new and maybe improved versions of the board whenever they feel like.

This is what a lot of manufacturers do for the hardware, most of them today spend more time dealing with software-related afterwork and support as possible, which is more manageable than pulling your hair redrawing the blueprints every few weeks and thinking of bankruptcy and suicide.

Microsoft, Samsung, Apple, Nintendo 'n shit 'n shit have regular much bigger screwups for which they give their customers the finger.

I'll buy an SSDS3 no matter what (just broke right now tho lol) since it's still a much better solution for me than running after the ideal NEC console setup that's always slipped through my fingers anyway.

[SavagePencil]

Can we compile a list of issues--preferably with screen shots--people are having on the visual noise angle? This would at least set a baseline for what's going wrong and how to detect it. If it's global, get some screen shots of that, so that we're not all just focused on Dungeon Explorer and Valis.

[samson7point1]

Perfectionism is a disease, not a virtue.

[Wolf_]

Perfectionism is a disease, not a virtue.

I guess most of human advancement was a horrible mistake then.... holy shit you're right!

[donluca]

Some people here need to stop saying 'just play the games'.

You've got to understand that to those who are not tech-savy, reading a post saying "a capacitor has been installed backwards!!" make a deal breaker for the product, because they immediately think that it is defective, while it is not.

Samsung has been putting low voltage caps on their TVs to cut the costs and the result is that people have been using them without issues for 5-6 years (afterwards the PSU failed) and no one has complained.

Now, THAT is a serious issue, and yet no one has ever noticed or has complained about video quality.

When posting publicly, you gotta realize that negative comments have far more weight than positive ones. Take one negative comment out of 100 positive ones and you've ruined a product to those who don't know what a capacitor is and how it works.

So, instead of saying "OMGZ SO MUCH NOIZE IN DA PICTURE!!!11!!" you should try to give a fair context to your posts.

2-3 games have visible noise if you stand close to the TV due to having solid color screens in them, out of the 100 others we have tested.

A capacitor has been installed backwards but has no visible effect (people have been reversing it already and had notice barely any improvements).

Now, the hissing issue... that's another story and that's pretty bad if it's so loud that could be hear even during music playback.

[samson7point1]

Perfectionism is a disease, not a virtue.

I guess most of human advancement was a horrible mistake then.... holy shit you're right!

While I can't speak to the relative veracity of that statement, I think you've misunderstood. The desire for better things, the desire for things to be better, and the drive to make them that way is healthy. That's not perfectionism. Perfectionism is what prohibits you from deriving any joy from what you have simply because you believe it could be better.

[Wolf_]

Perfectionism is a disease, not a virtue.

I guess most of human advancement was a horrible mistake then.... holy shit you're right!

While I can't speak to the relative veracity of that statement, I think you've misunderstood. The desire for better things, the desire for things to be better, and the drive to make them that way is healthy. That's not perfectionism. Perfectionism is what prohibits you from deriving any joy from what you have simply because you believe it could be better.

[cr4zymanz0r]

Can we compile a list of issues--preferably with screen shots--people are having on the visual noise angle? This would at least set a baseline for what's going wrong and how to detect it. If it's global, get some screen shots of that, so that we're not all just focused on Dungeon Explorer and Valis.

If I had a video capture device I could get some detailed examples. I don't have a super detailed camera or anything, so when I tried taking pictures of the issues before it wouldn't show up well because camera related issues were drowning it out such as glare off the LCD screen. Also, the focus on Dungeon Explorer and Valis II are because they're easy examples for other people to compare. The main place the noise seems to pop up on is larger areas of solid darker greens. I'd imagine there's other games affected, but I haven't blown through tons of games to see plus it's nice to set a baseline for other people to easily check if they're seeing the issue too.

At this point I'm not really thinking it's visible if you're solely playing on a CRT. Using a OSSC on a HD display is going to let you see details that just won't show up on (most?) CRT displays. I've had a similar issue with my Master System where RGB on it looks fine on a CRT, but then when I use the OSSC it makes jailbars clear as day on large areas of blue (though it's been minimized a decent bit after I did a RGB bypass mod).

@Rest of the Thread
Some people also seem to be under the impression this is only visible if you're doing something impractical like sitting 6 inches from the screen, which is not exactly the case. The big green border around the Valis 2 intro has the noise clearly visible from my couch probably around 7 or 8 feet away from the HDTV. On the Dungeon Explorer title screen it's a small patch of green so I can't notice as well unless I'm closer to the screen. Probably not an issue from my couch, but if someone is using a computer monitor and sitting at a typical desk distance from it then I could see it being an issue.

I've tried to be extremely detailed in my posts but some people keep calling aspects into question that I've already talked about. The thread has gotten pretty long, but I've seen some people do it literally 2 or 3 posts after my post .

Basically, I've put an internal RGB amp in my Core Grafx which is pretty much crystal clear, but:
1.) There is noise visible in the SSDS3 RGB circuit. It could very well be that their RGB circuit itself is fine/correct but it's just closer to other components that are causing the intereference (FPGA? SD card reader circuits?)
2.) Even when using the internal RGB amp I installed in the Core Grafx, using the SSDS3 still gets some noise in the RGB signal. It's greatly reduced this way, but still visibly shows up in couch-sitting-distance in Valis II.

FACT: The SSDS3 is adding video noise that is not present when the SSDS3 is not attached.
OPINION: "The video noise does/doesn't bother me."

BOTTOM LINE: There's a flaw in the product, though many non-RGB-enthusiasts will probably consider it minor or practically non-existent. Let's face it, this subforum is home to many retro videophiles, so of course we're going to pick up on the flaw better than people that are only concerned with playing the games. If you're bothered by the video noise, let's all discuss it and see if we can find a solution. If you're not bothered about the video noise and aren't interested in the discussion, why even bother coming in here basically saying "STFU RGB nerds, just play the games". It's really that simple. Bothered/interested by the RGB video quality? Stay and discuss. Not bothered/interested by the RGB video quality? Move on to another topic of something you're actually interested in. I feel like i'm rehashing a lot of stuff, so as this point I don't really feel like addressing the detractors anymore.

(Note: some people have mentioned sound hiss/buzz, but I haven't chimed in a whole lot on that topic since I haven't had the chance to dive in deep to that one yet. Need to make an audio cable for the SSDS3 since I'm using the AV port of my Core Grafx for RGB).

[Wolf_]

Voultar just posted a few vids on his twitter. He fixed everything. Video output is perfect now. Hopefully Terraonion will figure out how to implement his changes to a 3rd board revision which assuming it passes testing to prove they actually fixed the problems would be the one to get.

[Syntax]

Voultar just posted a few vids on his twitter. He fixed everything. Video output is perfect now. Hopefully Terraonion will figure out how to implement his changes to a 3rd board revision which assuming it passes testing to prove they actually fixed the problems would be the one to get.

Let's not get everyone too excited.

What he actually did was isolate the grounds on a revision 1 board then remade the RGB circuit to his suggested specs that were used to make revision 2.

And he said nothing about audio fixes besides the ground isolation which is only a revision 1 issue.

[LDigital]

I have revision one and happy to diy mine. Any chance of some instructions?

For me on my bvm 2011p the colours are a mess with darkened patches but my ossc is perfect. It’s very weird why this is and the question got shut down over at Ng because it’s not worth diagnosing v1 problems now apparently.

Sync stripper and regenerated sync don’t help this

Ossc = ok





BVM





What is going on? Does look like any sync issue I have ever seen before, the image is stable

[Wolf_]

Voultar just posted a few vids on his twitter. He fixed everything. Video output is perfect now. Hopefully Terraonion will figure out how to implement his changes to a 3rd board revision which assuming it passes testing to prove they actually fixed the problems would be the one to get.

Let's not get everyone too excited.

What he actually did was isolate the grounds on a revision 1 board then remade the RGB circuit to his suggested specs that were used to make revision 2.

And he said nothing about audio fixes besides the ground isolation which is only a revision 1 issue.

Let's not get everyone too down. I said he fixed the video, and he fixed the video. What I said on the tin is what you get. Now all that is left is to see if terraonion can implement it in their next and hopefully final board revision.

As for if this fixes the audio or not I do not know, but it is also possible the audio could get a software patch.

[Kez]

I don't think there will be another board revision.

However, this mod should be pretty similar on the rev 2. The digital/analog ground issue should not need doing I think? And the video part is literally just isolating and hijacking the input pins then doing a regular RGB mod.