Super HD System3 Pro

[strygo]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJhH_fPaVSQ

Overall, I'm quite excited by this revision. It has enough new features to make it feel worthy of an upgrade. I'm curious if they will be able to support 1080p down the road similar to the UltraHDMI and other Digital products.

Amazingly, the single element I'm least excited by is the blue shell. I was similarly disappointed when the EverDrives used the red clear shells - but in their case, being able to pick up the shell color of my choosing for a few more dollars was a reasonable trade off. Terra Onion's clear smoke shells have been a nice touch, so I'm disappointed they didn't carry them forward on this product.

[Gunstar]

From Terra's twitter:



I like that you can get the correct 'composite' colours out of it and the cover view menu looks nice

Personally don't have a need for it though.

[fernan1234]

That blue shell is indeed a big shame, and it is rather funny that it was presented as an "upgrade". You can bet that it has to do with them choosing the cheapest supplier available for the plastic shells. Maybe future batches may have decent color options again.

As to the actual hardware and software new features, it would have been pretty interesting over a year ago before the MiSTer's core for this system became so accurate (and now virtually perfect) that it actually rendered the original hardware obsolete. And with a more powerful FPGA and larger, open-source development it already has tons of more and better options for scaling the HD output, applying color, gamma, and scanlines filters, etc.

But for those who simply can't tolerate not using the original HW, this would be the best option available, killing the UpperGrafx--or so you may think, but the previous firmwares have still had emulation inaccuracies for some CD games and the Arcade card, which should matter more for the most strict hardware purists.

[Larrs888]

This is for sure an interesting release but from the teaser trailer they had I was expecting a NES flash cart or FPGA console. I really feel TO have missed a trick here though and given the power of the FPGA inside this new product and the fact they are touting other FPGA cores, I feel they should have made an actual FPGA console to compete with the Analog Duo etc. I was actually excited for a whole console rather than an updated ODE with video output. It is still cool though and a nice upgrade or option for those that skipped the original SSDS3.

To me, if you are using a none platform specific FPGA device to play games from another system you might as well go for Mister. I do prefer playing games on consoles designed around them i.e. snes games on a Super Nt and Megadrive on the Mega Sg as they feel like there are designed for those games and you have a console experience.

On the shell front, while blue is my favourite colour the smoke grey has a more subdued and premium look in my option, plus it goes very with with the Core GFX.

[strygo]

I find the ability to play alternate systems via cores on different system to be gimmicky. When krikzz did it, it felt more like an interesting experiment -- I am perplexed why this would be a touted feature on a device like this. Enabling the equivalent of MSU+ or wide screen (if possible) would be way more interesting to me.

As for the Mister vs. bespoke device topic, I believe the market will always have a place for the latter. Raspberry Pis have been around for quite some time and even they provide a 'good enough' experience for most systems. Mister is definitely a cut above that but it provides a similar experience. While not necessary, being able to play real cartridges and disks and use real peripherals will matter to many people for quite some time to come.

[ChuChu Flamingo]

I would be very cautious buying anything from this company. These are the same people who said RGB video quality has no standards and isn't quantifiable. Behold now they are doing scaling and touting video quality.

Especially after the SSD3 audio and video problems that still exist to this day afaik. But you should just consider those "extra".

Also Todd needs to dial down how fast he talks. There is only one micro machines guy.

Buyer beware.

[fernan1234]

As for the Mister vs. bespoke device topic, I believe the market will always have a place for the latter. Raspberry Pis have been around for quite some time and even they provide a 'good enough' experience for most systems. Mister is definitely a cut above that but it provides a similar experience. While not necessary, being able to play real cartridges and disks and use real peripherals will matter to many people for quite some time to come.

I would draw a distinction between "good enough" solutions, like emulators on a Pi, and something that is "strictly better" than the original, meaning it gives you absolutely everything the original did in virtually the exact same way in terms of the actual gaming experience, in addition to fidelity and quality of life improvements that the original simply lacked, as well as modern conveniences if you want them on top. I don't generalize and say that the MiSTer does that for every core it has relative to the corresponding original hardware, but I can say it confidently for the specific case of the core for the TG16/PCE.

I love this system and used to have a huge collection of original hardware for it, and I sold it all almost over night after realizing that I'd never have a reason to touch it ever again after the core on MiSTer was basically perfected last year.

But yes, definitely there will always be a market made up of original HW purists, though like I said the inaccuracies that have come so far with most ODEs, this one being no exception, is kind of in contradiction with purism. The most hardcore purists will actually want to use the real CDs and hucards, even on unmodded hardware, rather than this.

[eightbitminiboss]

I would be very cautious buying anything from this company. These are the same people who said RGB video quality has no standards and isn't quantifiable. Behold now they are doing scaling and touting video quality.

Especially after the SSD3 audio and video problems that still exist to this day afaik. But you should just consider those "extra".

Also Todd needs to dial down how fast he talks. There is only one micro machines guy.

Buyer beware.

The SSDS3 had a hardware revision that incorporated known mods (FU-RGB Bypass and Stereo Bypass Amp) to fix the issues the original (pre-2019) release had. It's been fine now. Worst case if you have a bad micro SD card that can cause buzz, but in my experience I haven't had any or too low to even notice.

[Guspaz]

I love this system and used to have a huge collection of original hardware for it, and I sold it all almost over night after realizing that I'd never have a reason to touch it ever again after the core on MiSTer was basically perfected last year.

But yes, definitely there will always be a market made up of original HW purists, though like I said the inaccuracies that have come so far with most ODEs, this one being no exception, is kind of in contradiction with purism. The most hardcore purists will actually want to use the real CDs and hucards, even on unmodded hardware, rather than this.

I'd just caution that the MiSTer in its current form is a project living on borrowed time. It's entirely dependent on a devkit being sold at a huge discount, which at any point may be discontinued or experience a price increase. In fact, it just saw a 40% price increase.

The MiSTer cores are open-source, so it's not like the sudden lack of hardware to run them on would be a death knell, but it would be challenging for the project to replace the current board since they'd need to find another dev kit that was as heavily discounted.

All this to say, getting MiSTer cores ported to other boards/platforms increases the resiliency of the project, making it less likely that the whole thing would fall apart if the hardware suddenly became unviable. Right now, it feels like all the eggs are in one basket.

[fernan1234]

All this to say, getting MiSTer cores ported to other boards/platforms increases the resiliency of the project, making it less likely that the whole thing would fall apart if the hardware suddenly became unviable. Right now, it feels like all the eggs are in one basket.

Nah, not really, and presently available MiSTer setups are no more on borrowed time than actual game consoles themselves, whose prices continue to increase as well. I don't see a need to worry about this, especially regarding "finished" cores like the one for the PCE. Porting them to future platforms would be relatively straightforward. And besides, your DE10 boards are not going anywhere any time sooner than your PCE will fail, most likely.

[XtraSmiley]

I like the upgrade, don't like the blue, and will wait to see reviews and real world results before making final judgements.

That price though!

[brentsg]

They got my money for the early defective model so I’m not interested in funding them any further..

[spmbx]

So its basically a mister-lite that needs a pce to function. Or something. From a shit company.

[broken]

That blue shell is indeed a big shame, and it is rather funny that it was presented as an "upgrade". You can bet that it has to do with them choosing the cheapest supplier available for the plastic shells. Maybe future batches may have decent color options again.

Our plastics guy has been the same guy since pretty much the beginning. Color doesn’t affect the price at all (within reason).

The blue was chosen as Alex thought it would be a nice change from the smoke gray of the SSDS3, MegaSD and NeoSD Pro.

[fernan1234]

The blue was chosen as Alex thought it would be a nice change from the smoke gray of the SSDS3, MegaSD and NeoSD Pro.

If that's the case you'd think there'd be someone else there to tell him, dude you're the boss here but this is just not the best idea. Feels like the unfavorable reaction to the color choice has been pretty universal.

[Fudoh]

I agree, blue is a bad choice. Orange would be nice for the original white PCE, but smoke grey always was a good choice to match all existing PCE variations. Blue seems like a decision made on a CG1, but never ever picturing it on a white PCE...

From a technical point of view it reads nicely. I hope you guys pay attention to the video stage. There's still A LOT than go wrong with 720p HDMI output.

@broken: What's TO's decision for handling of the horizontal resolution? Do you get a unified aspect ratio for all three PCE on-screen resolutions? If we get integer for one reasolution, what about the others?

If the analogue RGB output is derived from the digital stage, does this include the existing HDMI restrictions? If so, this would mean that the output resolution on the RGB port would be oversampled (e.g. 720 or 1440x240p instead of native 256(etc)x240p), which in return would make it impossible to achieve the best possible results using an upscaler like the OSSC or the 5X.

If the RGB stage is running indepently from the HDMI stage (so native 15khz wouldn't be restricted by the minimium HDMI bandwith specs), can RGB and HDMI be used simultaneously with different resolutions? E.g. RGB to a CRT and 720p for a capture or streaming device?

And will the HDMI output be locked to the original system refresh rate? If so, this might be causing problems with streaming gear. And if not, how will the framerate conversion be handled. Will the RGB output deliver an untouched original refresh rate, while the HDMI output gets normalized for capture cards?

I guess that those questions won't be answered, but maybe they could be taken to people actually working on the unit.

[fernan1234]

Excellent questions, Fudoh. Thanks for raising them. Even if nothing comes out of bringing them up for this particular product, they are questions that should come up for every single retro game/video commercial project--or ideally should not be needed since the people behind the product should address them from the start. Our standards are much higher now thanks to the wonderful projects and products that have come out or matured in the last couple of years.

[broken]

Thanks for the questions Fudoh.

Per neodev:

Scaling is integer for 720p sharp mode, so the aspect ratio is not fixed
Others are fixed AR
Rgb is output at the pce clock rate, no processing apart from palette decoding
Rgb and hdmi are not possible at the same time because the pixel bus is shared, so when using hdmi, the rgb dac is disabled
Framerate conversion only happens in hdmi, but therr is a resolution (720x480 unbuffered) that is output at the native sample rate, although this means it may not be compatible with all tvs
All other 3 use a double buffered framebuffer
(there is space for triple buffered if needed)

[Fudoh]

Excellent! Sounds good.

I guess I would wish for the choice between framerate converted output and output at native refresh to be available for all video modes, including the integer scaled 720p modes, but maybe that can be enabled down the road.

[RevQuixo]

it should also be noted that you *can* dual output in a roundabout way. You can use the HDMI on the SHDS3 and then grab the analog video from the PCE directly and the mixed audio from the SHSD3 RGB din. It continues to transmit audio even if the video is cut-off.

[Bassa-Bassa]

the MiSTer's core for this system became so accurate (and now virtually perfect) that it actually rendered the original hardware obsolete.

So glad to read that. I really need to get me a MiSTer device once and for all. Can the same be said about the SFC/SNES core at last? And how's the GBA core these days?

[fernan1234]

So glad to read that. I really need to get me a MiSTer device once and for all. Can the same be said about the SFC/SNES core at last? And how's the GBA core these days?

I don't use these regularly so can't speak with full confidence, but SFC/SNES and GBA cores both are very mature and have reached a high level of accuracy, seemingly to the point of being virtually indistinguishable from the original HW in virtually all relevant situations. SFC/SNES core also has the nice advantage of blending fake transparencies along with RGB-level quality (makes a huge difference in games like Kirby 3!). GBA in turn has turbo mode, great for those slow RPGs and such, as well as save states. I hop onto the MiSTer only for games that benefit from these features though, for the rest I still just stick with the original HW because unlike the PCE the original hardware is not ridden with issues and annoyances!

[Greg2600]

$350+ is crazy, no thanks. Can that GUI be replicated on the SSD3?

[jd213]

Would be cool if this had a USB port and allowed one to attach a PC optical drives, so the Pro could function as both an actual PCE CD-ROM replacement and as a ODE, and maybe allow one to directly backup their own games.

As-is, this looks rather unappealing at the current price point. One may as well get a MISTer or wait for the Analogue Duo (even scalper prices for the latter might be cheaper).

Might as well go all-in and make a full FPGA PCE, even if it was more expensive than the Analogue Duo it would probably sell well.

[BuckoA51]

I'd like to request 240p out from the HDMI, I already have a DAC that handles this very well (as will upcoming OSSC Pro and Morph no doubt) and it would reduce my cable clutter significantly.

[Fudoh]

I already have a DAC that handles this very well

which one are you using?

[BuckoA51]

which one are you using?

HD Fury Nano.

[supergrafx77]

I'm still happy I went w/ the Uper Grafx/made in Japan/no tacky blue casing, or multiple reiterations (and possibly such support helped a smart young Japanese engineer pay for his books through College, etc., instead of this company).
On my super ultrawide Samsung CRG9 (not sure if the monitor is doing some scaling as well), it scales correctly. And frankly, it seems blasphemous, but I'm surprised that the missing scanlines become a nonissue quickly after some use.
I have the option, to rgb mod directly out the pc engine for dual output at same time (would like to send the unit to someone on shmups to do it nice prof. solder/mod w/ best rgb output available if possible/I have so much to do these days...).
I still have a small Sony PVM-6041QM/preview monitor, the one w/ the kickstand, that would look boss/off to the side of the CRG9/dual output.
Granted, I went ahead and purchased all physical hucard games from my youth and Arcade Card Pro, which the Super HD System3 Pro seems to not need like its last version (perhaps Uper Grafx can run roms from hucards as well?/I didn't think so, so bought them all), but the physical cards, are boss imo.
I guess the only disappointing thing I can think of is that this new Chinese unit has Supergrafx implementation as well. I will survive and be happy w/ my unit. I recommend Uper Grafx over this company.

[fernan1234]

I'm still happy I went w/ the Uper Grafx/made in Japan/no tacky blue casing, or multiple reiterations (and possibly such support helped a smart young Japanese engineer pay for his books through College, etc., instead of this company).

Did you ever encounter any glitches or inaccuracies while using the UperGrafx? From what I read a while ago from Japanese users, it seems to be free of such issues.

The PC Engine, and especially the CD section, is a very Japanese system. So it is a great advantage for an ODE to be under Japanese development and with a good amount of Japanese users that can dig into the vast library up to the end screen of games (and not just check that they boot or get past the title screen). It's a different matter when the device is almost exclusively used in a Western market where most people are getting it to play Rondo of Blood and a handful of other marquee titles.

The only big downside of the UperGrafx is lack of CRT support. Back when I wanted to stick with original hardware I begged someone here who had direct contact with the dev to add 240p output via HDMI, but nothing came of it. Sadly it looks like in Japan interest in CRTs is extremely niche. A big reason is probably lack of space.

[supergrafx77]

I'm still happy I went w/ the Uper Grafx/made in Japan/no tacky blue casing, or multiple reiterations (and possibly such support helped a smart young Japanese engineer pay for his books through College, etc., instead of this company).

Did you ever encounter any glitches or inaccuracies while using the UperGrafx? From what I read a while ago from Japanese users, it seems to be free of such issues.

The PC Engine, and especially the CD section, is a very Japanese system. So it is a great advantage for an ODE to be under Japanese development and with a good amount of Japanese users that can dig into the vast library up to the end screen of games (and not just check that they boot or get past the title screen). It's a different matter when the device is almost exclusively used in a Western market where most people are getting it to play Rondo of Blood and a handful of other marquee titles.

The only big downside of the UperGrafx is lack of CRT support. Back when I wanted to stick with original hardware I begged someone here who had direct contact with the dev to add 240p output via HDMI, but nothing came of it. Sadly it looks like in Japan interest in CRTs is extremely niche. A big reason is probably lack of space.

Yes, I have not come across any issues or bugs w/ the Upergrafx itself.

Some iso images I have found over the net, have partially ran or not run at all at times (most run; but some I have had to try a few different isos of the same game, before I get one that runs w/out hiccups), but I believe the image was molested in someway over the original in that Upergrafx seems to want very accurate isos at times/not always, but sometimes. I'm sure quite a few of my isos are perhaps not perfect, but happen to run fine/perfectly though anyways.
I believe the images I have had issues w/, although they work w/ other emulators like magic engine/or this ssd3, the image was inaccurate w/ mp3/timing issues or something like that that those other systems do not seem to care about.
But searching for other correct iso of the same title or at least one that runs, have solved such issues every time so far. And if you know someone w/ the original cd images or have the originals yourself/1-1 burns, I don't think there are any issues what-so-ever.

As far as lack of CRT support, the fact that you can at the same time, output RGB from the PC Engine or Coregrafx 1 or 2, as long as the system is modded, I always considered the Upergrafx having RGB/CRT support from the get go. Just the RGB has to come out via the modded AV output directly from the pc engine, so you can solely output via CRT or go hdmi or both dually, as long as your PC Engine is RGB modded.
It obviously is a bit more involved w/ finding accurate isos or burns, when it comes to ones that may be troublesome littered around the internet.
However, I think that for archiving reasons, it would be better for such isos, to be accurate/or at least as accurate as possible.
The English translated titles I have tried like Ys iv and Xak III, have run w/out issue as well.
I am very pleased and love the Uper Grafx. Really glad I got it.