Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

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bobrocks95
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Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

Post by bobrocks95 »

What are some mods/projects/products you'd most like to see someone in the community develop?

For me my top 3 would be:
  • 1) Consolized 3DS with some sort of native controller input/bluetooth capability. After the Switch came out, I realized I don't want to be stuck playing a handheld ever again if possible. On the Nintendo side we already have multiple good solutions for Gameboy through GBA, but nothing currently available for DS or 3DS, and the previous 3DS solutions were focused on capture capability and routed through USB. 3DS Custom Firmware allows for bluetooth controller support, but it's routed through a computer and then through WiFi to the console. Honestly? Some sort of connection with the Wii U Gamepad would be awesome, but highly unlikely- it's a great controller/tablet hybrid that would work well. The touchscreen aspect would be the real make-or-break moment for this project I figure.

    2) Sega Saturn permanent save RAM replacement. Internal save RAM was a novel move at the time compared to buying multiple memory cards and juggling them around (where's the community x16 PS1/PS2 memory cards btw?), but the Sega Saturn's RTC eating the RAM battery's life and making you lose all your saves if you don't back them up isn't the sort of thing I'm used to when we're to the point of automatic cloud save backups and near-infinite local storage these days. I've seen some people experiment with connecting large external battery packs, connecting up hacked circuits for rechargeable batteries, disconnecting the RTC from the battery to improve its life, and probably more, but there's definitely no convenient, universal solution short of remembering to back up your saves. I'd love to see a relatively simple adapter/circuit mod that would allow you to have non-volatile flash RAM on the board without having to ever worry about your saves being deleted again.

    3) PS2 HDMI output (this one's in-progress!). With homebrew and softmods for the Xbox, Gamecube, and Wii, the PS2 is left as effectively the only 480i console in my setup. Last time I tested GSM there were a large number of games that halved their vertical resolution when 480p was forced, or a portion of the image got cut off due to framebuffer resolution differences. While I'm not a fan of most of the current HDMI mods out there due to their cost usually being well over $200 with installation services (UltraHDMI, DCHDMI, Hi-Def NES), when you could simply get an OSSC for less, get fairly comparable results, and use it for more than just one system, the PS2 really needs a robust de-interlacing solution that's going to end up with you investing a good amount of money into just it anyway. This is the one console where I would be interested in a robust, expensive HDMI solution just for it, because unfortunately it really needs it. Now if only the super slim with the internal PSU would be supported...
I'm sure some ODEs would be high on some people's priority lists. What would you like to see the community develop?
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Konsolkongen
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Re: Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

Post by Konsolkongen »

Number 2 is already available. Just solder in a compatible FRAM-chip instead and you're good to go :)

I've had it installed in my Saturn for about a year now and it works perfectly fine. Same amount of space though, would love to see an increase someday :)

https://imgur.com/a/mk9jq7g
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Re: Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

Post by awe444 »

bobrocks95 wrote:Consolized 3DS with some sort of native controller input/bluetooth capability. After the Switch came out, I realized I don't want to be stuck playing a handheld ever again if possible. On the Nintendo side we already have multiple good solutions for Gameboy through GBA, but nothing currently available for DS or 3DS, and the previous 3DS solutions were focused on capture capability and routed through USB. 3DS Custom Firmware allows for bluetooth controller support, but it's routed through a computer and then through WiFi to the console. Honestly? Some sort of connection with the Wii U Gamepad would be awesome, but highly unlikely- it's a great controller/tablet hybrid that would work well. The touchscreen aspect would be the real make-or-break moment for this project I figure.
I’d speculate a DS/3DS consolizer is probably indeed being worked on. However I've no idea whether it’s being engineered as a (1) top-screen replacement only, with bottom half remaining as the controller and touchpad, or (2) a way to output both screens’ signals to one or two external displays, perhaps with an added controller port. I’d personally prefer the former, which would basically be a WiiU-like experience but with a wired controller. Also hoping that non-upscaled, 192p-within-240p output is possible; I can understand why that was omitted on the GBA consolizer since the Game Boy Player fills that role, but for DS there’s no such option out there.
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Xyga
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Re: Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

Post by Xyga »

bobrocks95 wrote:the PS2 really needs a robust de-interlacing solution that's going to end up with you investing a good amount of money into just it anyway. This is the one console where I would be interested in a robust, expensive HDMI solution just for it, because unfortunately it really needs it. Now if only the super slim with the internal PSU would be supported...[/list]
So you expect something dedicated that beats a FrameMeister or a DVDO ABT102 or 50 Pro at deinterlacing and with full convenience for the other modes?
Mmh...

The GBS8220 mod cruelly lacks screenshots and video captures of what it's capable of, but I'd wager that's actually the closest thing currently (without the convenience since it's DIY but heh)
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nmalinoski
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Re: Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

Post by nmalinoski »

There's already one of these threads on here: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=65289
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orange808
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Re: Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

Post by orange808 »

Ultimately, the best PS2 solution would be some kind of emulation solution.
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Re: Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

Post by nmalinoski »

orange808 wrote:Ultimately, the best PS2 solution would be some kind of emulation solution.
Best overall, possibly; but that could probably be applied to any console, and it doesn't do anything for those who want to or can use original hardware.

Where the original hardware is concerned, for both the PS2 and PS1, I think a good-but-still-optional, internal deinterlacing and framerate conversion solution would be an ideal solution for addressing 480i and the frequent resolution switching used by many games for these consoles.
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bobrocks95
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Re: Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

Post by bobrocks95 »

Konsolkongen wrote:Number 2 is already available. Just solder in a compatible FRAM-chip instead and you're good to go :)

I've had it installed in my Saturn for about a year now and it works perfectly fine. Same amount of space though, would love to see an increase someday :)

https://imgur.com/a/mk9jq7g
Did not know that was commonly available now, very glad to see it! I last looked into it around 2017, looks like it picked up since then. Thank goodness, I've lost enough saves already.
Xyga wrote:So you expect something dedicated that beats a FrameMeister or a DVDO ABT102 or 50 Pro at deinterlacing and with full convenience for the other modes?
Mmh...
For the $200+ I would expect the board to cost pre-install, yeah, I would. If that really isn't feasible these days I guess I'll stick to a CRT just for PS2 stuff.
The GBS8220 mod cruelly lacks screenshots and video captures of what it's capable of, but I'd wager that's actually the closest thing currently (without the convenience since it's DIY but heh)
I knew the custom firmware for that linedoubled, but I didn't figure it had full deinterlacing?
orange808 wrote:Ultimately, the best PS2 solution would be some kind of emulation solution.
Like nmalinoski said you could really say that for any given 3D console. Citra can play a good number of commercial 3DS games in 4K if you want, and that's a very recent console...
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orange808
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Re: Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

Post by orange808 »

nmalinoski wrote:
orange808 wrote:Ultimately, the best PS2 solution would be some kind of emulation solution.
Best overall, possibly; but that could probably be applied to any console, and it doesn't do anything for those who want to or can use original hardware.

Where the original hardware is concerned, for both the PS2 and PS1, I think a good-but-still-optional, internal deinterlacing and framerate conversion solution would be an ideal solution for addressing 480i and the frequent resolution switching used by many games for these consoles.
Xyga already said all that needs to be said about an internal deinterlacer.
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Xyga
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Re: Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

Post by Xyga »

orange808 wrote:Xyga already said all that needs to be said about an internal deinterlacer.
Did I?

'bout GBScontrol deinterlacing; 'right bob I've got completely messed memories of past reading that thread, guess that's age lol.
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rama
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Re: Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

Post by rama »

You can choose between bob and motion adaptive deinterlacing with gbscontrol.
If using motion adaptive, the algorithm is optimized to deliver no-flicker static images with minimal artifacts in motion, using a single field buffer.

It's pretty much ideal for the PS2, as it supports all possible video modes with the least hassle.
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Re: Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

Post by Xyga »

Thank you for confirming I've not gone completely senile yet. :mrgreen:

EDIT: but you see rama, this is again something that need to be shown and advertised a bit, the GBScontrol project is extremely bad communication-wise, it's too obscure for lambda ppl.
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Re: Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

Post by it290 »

Consolized 3DS that allowed 3D output to a 3DTV or VR headset would be pretty cool. Probably more realistically an emulation feature, but I'd love playing Super Mario 3D Land or Sega Ages Out Run in proper 'big screen' 3D.
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Re: Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

Post by jd213 »

I'd really like a consolized PSP, or even just a controller port (there have been a couple people on the net in Japan and the US that permanently wired in an arcade stick, but it requires soldering that's beyond my skills). Played through Rockman Irregular Hunter (X1 2.5D remake) on a PSPgo+DS3, couldn't pull off a hadouken even once.

A consolized PSP would also be able to natively (since it has the PS1 chips integrated into it) run PS1 games with output at 240p or 480p, and without dropping the signal during 240p-480i transitions. PSPgo's "Pause Game" option also acts like a save state for both PSP and PS1 games (and maybe emulators that don't have save states built in, but I haven't tried it yet), but it takes like a minute to save and around half as long to load, and it can only be used on one game at a time, so it's a bit impractical but it's nice to have save states on native hardware.

An internal 1/4 Meg RAM cart for the Saturn would also be nice. It always takes me 10+tries to get a RAM cart to work with my Saturn, but backup carts and Pro Actio Replays usually work immediately. Guess I should try bending back the pins in the cart slot.
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Re: Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

Post by SavagePencil »

Open source all the flashcart software and then let the community build better interfaces.
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Re: Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

Post by BuckoA51 »

Konsolkongen wrote:Number 2 is already available. Just solder in a compatible FRAM-chip instead and you're good to go :)

I've had it installed in my Saturn for about a year now and it works perfectly fine. Same amount of space though, would love to see an increase someday :)

https://imgur.com/a/mk9jq7g
Does this solve the issue of the console keep losing the time and date? (I'm guessing no).
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Re: Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

Post by rama »

BuckoA51:
Just a guess, but with the regular save RAM removed, maybe the circuit draws less power now?
Any regular RTC usually runs for ages on a cell battery.
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Re: Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

Post by bobrocks95 »

Unfortunately, for the Saturn, dbelectronics said that the RTC is what is draining the battery so quickly. So you'll still have to replace the battery after a few months to stop the clock from resetting. Someone needs to replace that too it looks like :mrgreen:
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Re: Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

Post by Konsolkongen »

Normally the battery lasts for a couple of years in a Saturn, so for me it's not really a problem.
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Re: Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

Post by rama »

Did he say the RTC plus RAM drained the battery, or the RTC alone?
Iirc, the special thing about the Saturn was that it combined these two, and the RAM could be the significant factor.
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Re: Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

Post by bobrocks95 »

rama wrote:Did he say the RTC plus RAM drained the battery, or the RTC alone?
Iirc, the special thing about the Saturn was that it combined these two, and the RAM could be the significant factor.
The RAM drains a bit of battery but the RTC uses much more power, so you won't see large gains in battery life.

https://db-electronics.ca/2017/02/10/se ... -required/
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Re: Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

Post by rama »

Okay, that's just bad then :/

I do wonder what happened there though. Is the RTC part of the SMPC chip just badly designed?
Is the battery power leaking out through some capacitors maybe?
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Re: Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

Post by DoomsDave »

It's not really a mod but an OSSC or Mike Chi style downscaler would be a dream come true.
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Re: Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

Post by nmalinoski »

DoomsDave wrote:It's not really a mod but an OSSC or Mike Chi style downscaler would be a dream come true.
I believe someone already floated the idea of an alternate OSSC firmware for that purpose. You'd still need a DAC, but it should be doable.
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Re: Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

Post by rama »

Is there a list of technical requirements for such a downscaler device?
What sources are expected to be supported and what should the output be?
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Re: Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

Post by Fudoh »

If somebody was building one from scratch: accepted input formats would include 480p, 576p, 720p, 960p and maybe 1080p. Output is 240p for 60Hz sources or 288p for 50Hz sources. 1080p can't be properly converted to 240p, so it would either need a rather good scaling engine or just use the 960p window inside and crop the rest. Input signal would be HDMI and VGA. Output would be analogue RGB or YUV (ideally both).

If building on existing hardware (like the OSSC), VGA input would be good enough and 240p output through HDMI is manageable as well. The OSSC is missing the neccessary memory buffer to delay the output timing required for a scan conversion to 15khz.

In terms of processing you can ideally choose between discarding each other line (like the Genius II) or merging adjacent lines (like the Emotia). Same for the horizontal resolution. Proper input sampling and - based on that - options to choose which pixels are dropped or scaled would be good as well.
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Re: Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

Post by rama »

I think I can try that on the GBS8200.
Dropping the line count should be doable inherently by telling the output formatter to output 240p, nothing else required.
Another way is to mess up the input formatter in such a way that it misses every other line.

Horizontal sampling would be my usual method of sampling as often as possible, then interpolating to the desired resolution.
This also takes care of the 422 processing loss via the step response filter.

Yeah, this could work out nicely.
I'll try it :)
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Re: Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

Post by orange808 »

If it's to be an "all in one" 240p solution, I would also like to see the ability to accept 480i.

For games without a flicker filter, the ability to manipulate the field offset would be welcome.

For games with a flicker filter, we have to deinterlace. A low latency proper deinterlacing solution (like Framemeister) with 240p output would be ideal. The current "best solution" is to feed OSSC 4x 960p bob deinterlacing output with scanlines (to reduce flickering) and the reverse LPF (regain some sharpness lost to flicker filtering at cost of some ringing) and downscale to 240p, but it's not perfect.

Frame lock would be nice as well.
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Re: Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

Post by strayan »

nmalinoski wrote: Where the original hardware is concerned, for both the PS2 and PS1, I think a good-but-still-optional, internal deinterlacing and framerate conversion solution would be an ideal solution for addressing 480i and the frequent resolution switching used by many games for these consoles.
Why do you need internal deinterlacing?
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Re: Top Community Mods You'd Like to See

Post by Fudoh »

to have a proper 480i to 240p solution. I wouldn't say that it's most the most important feature, but it's nice to have. It's rather complicated compared with the rest of the feature wish list though.
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