Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

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mario64
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Re: Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

Post by mario64 »

game-tech.us wrote: Replace, yes, work with it, no...
Great thank you. I've got Voultar doing my install
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Re: Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

Post by leonk »

game-tech.us wrote:
Guspaz wrote:He said that he upgraded to the biggest plan GoDaddy offered, but it still wasn't enough. To be honest, I'm surprised at how little resources GoDaddy's biggest hosting plan has, with no ability to scale beyond it.
Agreed, godaddy has to GO!
Switch to squarespace. It never goes down!
borti4938

Re: Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

Post by borti4938 »

Is there a chance for the Hi-Def NES to become a open source project (at least in parts)? I guess many people out there would appreciate it!
leonk
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Re: Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

Post by leonk »

borti4938 wrote:Is there a chance for the Hi-Def NES to become a open source project (at least in parts)? I guess many people out there would appreciate it!
:shock: :shock: :shock: I'd say no way in hell. Especially considering the hundreds of hours kevtris spend writing the FPGA source!
borti4938

Re: Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

Post by borti4938 »

I don't want to count how many hundreds of hours I have spend so far in writing codes, designing PCBs and refactoring everything constantly (and answering mails as good as I can). :shock: However, I got many 'thank you' for that which is extremely nice to hear :)
Also, I would make a donation for it if I would be able to build it by myself. Unfortunately there are a lot of people out there who just take what they can without giving anything back (so I can also understand a simple 'no' to my question).
I would also buy just the PCBs (and programming file, e.g. jic-file) if there is the chance to do so.
Ikaruga11
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Re: Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

Post by Ikaruga11 »

So how does the HDMI NES compare to an NES modded with RGB?
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RGB32E
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Re: Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

Post by RGB32E »

borti4938 wrote:Also, I would make a donation for it if I would be able to build it by myself. Unfortunately there are a lot of people out there who just take what they can without giving anything back (so I can also understand a simple 'no' to my question).
I would also buy just the PCBs (and programming file, e.g. jic-file) if there is the chance to do so.
You'd really have to contact Kevtris to see if you can make an arrangement (license). The folks at Analogue were responsible for manufacturing the NESRGB and Hi-Def NES kits they installed in their Nt consoles after making arrangements with Tim and Kev (respectively). The NESRGB kits in the Analogue Nt have a black PCB instead of green! Haven't cracked open my Nt to see if there's any Analogue specific touches for their HDN PCB though!

In any case, it will be interesting to see if the batch size increases from 200 for the next DIY kit sale!
GeneraLight wrote:So how does the HDMI NES compare to an NES modded with RGB?
In what way? HDN vs NESRGB via XRGB-mini on a flat panel? The HDN will give you a sharper and cleaner image on a flat panel, along with a variety of filters. The palette choices between the two are fairly different. The default HDN palette of "FCEUX" (aka "Improved" on NESRGB) looks dramatically different between the two kits. The FCEUX/Improved palette on the HDN is a bit under-saturated and skews towards green, and on the NESRGB just slightly oversaturated (♡). Either way, I have to adjust TV settings if I want to dial it in to my liking. I'd surmise that people who didn't like the FCEUX palette on the NESRGB will like it on the HDN.

Jason's order page does list out a number of features that are useful for drawing comparisons - http://www.game-tech.us/product/hi-def-nes/
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Re: Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

Post by leonk »

borti4938 wrote:I don't want to count how many hundreds of hours I have spend so far in writing codes, designing PCBs and refactoring everything constantly (and answering mails as good as I can). :shock: However, I got many 'thank you' for that which is extremely nice to hear :)
Also, I would make a donation for it if I would be able to build it by myself. Unfortunately there are a lot of people out there who just take what they can without giving anything back (so I can also understand a simple 'no' to my question).
I would also buy just the PCBs (and programming file, e.g. jic-file) if there is the chance to do so.
I don't doubt you .. I appreciate the work you do, as well as the entire OSD community. We wouldn't have smartphones, routers and TV's as good as they are today if it wasn't for all the hard work.

That being said, I understand why Kevin might not want to open source the project. Imagine the support nightmare he will have from people that have no business installing BGA chips, or soldering. Just look at the NESRGB thread on this forum for examples.

Paying the $130 for the kit is not that much. You still need to install it (just like NESRGB). I'm sure with time they will become more easily purchasable.
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Guspaz
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Re: Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

Post by Guspaz »

The $120 ($130 is only if you get the interposers pre-assembled) price makes sense, it's a fair bit more advanced than the NESRGB: it has a significantly more powerful FPGA (well, an FPGA instead of a CPLD), for example, plus an HDMI encoder. And the interposers (for both CPU and PPU) are included in that price. And I suspect it was a much larger amount of effort to design than the NESRGB. I'm not disparaging the NESRGB, mind you, it's just that the Hi-Def NES had a heck of a lot more "software" work, since it emulates a lot more of the NES hardware, including the entire sound subsystem.
borti4938

Re: Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

Post by borti4938 »

I've never said that $120 is too much ;) I only see the risk that the customs will take it away as it is a complete electronic part which might be not legal to import in the view of the customs employee (might depend on the employee, too). This would be not the first time.
Import e.g. just the three PCBs (imposers + main) and the parts separately is much easier, though.

Thank you to RGB32E for the hint contacting him directly. I'll give it a try :)
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CkRtech
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Re: Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

Post by CkRtech »

Figured I might eventually mod my AV Famicom with a Hi-Def NES. After today's video, I decided to open it for the first time (nice dust, eh?) and see what CPU and PPU are in there. I don't know how much documentation there is on revisions of the AV Famicom, but here is an image of my unit with serial number HN10968049 in case you guys eventually need to try to tell people to steer clear of a certain range of serial numbers should a fix not be available. My unit seems to be OK, and I have no idea if I am close to the serial number range of the unit that Jason's PPU/CPU testing was from.

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Voultar
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Re: Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

Post by Voultar »

^ Those are definitely laser printed.



Here's a REV2 AV Famicom that I completed earlier today.

Serial # HN10845029

Silk-Screened H-Rev CPU/PPU

Image
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game-tech.us
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Re: Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

Post by game-tech.us »

CkRtech wrote:Figured I might eventually mod my AV Famicom with a Hi-Def NES. After today's video, I decided to open it for the first time (nice dust, eh?) and see what CPU and PPU are in there. I don't know how much documentation there is on revisions of the AV Famicom, but here is an image of my unit with serial number HN10968049 in case you guys eventually need to try to tell people to steer clear of a certain range of serial numbers should a fix not be available. My unit seems to be OK, and I have no idea if I am close to the serial number range of the unit that Jason's PPU/CPU testing was from.
I think you might have the laser marked chips actually. Other than the yellowish color instead of white like all the other chips, the other way you can tell for sure they are laser marked is if they are harder to read straight on and easy to read from an angle.
Actual pic of cpu i had the issue with:
http://www.game-tech.us/av-famicom-lase ... u-and-ppu/
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CkRtech
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Re: Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

Post by CkRtech »

Oh man. Now that I see it from an image, it does like quite similar. Mine were pretty easy to read, but they do have that yellow tint. Hmm.
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FBX
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Re: Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

Post by FBX »

So I came across something Nintendo is releasing called the "NES mini" which also hooks up to modern displays with HDMI and has 30 games built in:

https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Misc-/Ninten ... nouncement

Obviously there are a lot of questions I have about this, such as hardware emulation, whether or not more games can be added, what kind of video features it has, etc.

Edit: More news in that it will sell for $60 in North America, and comes with one controller and power cord. For that price, I'm all over it when it comes out.

https://www.engadget.com/2016/07/14/nin ... -30-games/
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Shoryukev
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Re: Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

Post by Shoryukev »

FBX wrote:So I came across something Nintendo is releasing called the "NES mini" which also hooks up to modern displays with HDMI and has 30 games built in:

https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Misc-/Ninten ... nouncement

Obviously there are a lot of questions I have about this, such as hardware emulation, whether or not more games can be added, what kind of video features it has, etc.

Edit: More news in that it will sell for $60 in North America, and comes with one controller and power cord. For that price, I'm all over it when it comes out.

https://www.engadget.com/2016/07/14/nin ... -30-games/
I'm very surprised at how great that list of 30 titles is. I expected it to be all first party software, and full of fluff. I might get this for my son when it comes out. I love the packaging as well!!!
Spoiler
Balloon Fight
Bubble Bobble
Castlevania
Castlevania II: Simon's Quest
Donkey Kong
Donkey Kong Jr.
Double Dragon II: The Revenge
Dr. Mario
Excitebike
Final Fantasy
Galaga
Ghosts' N Ghoblins
Gradius
Ice Climber
Kid Icarus
Kirby's Adventure
Mario Bros.
Mega Man 2
Metroid
Ninja Gaiden
Pac-Man
Punch-Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream
StarTropics
SUPER C
Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros. 2
Super Mario Bros. 3
Tecmo Bowl
The Legend of Zelda
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.
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Guspaz
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Re: Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

Post by Guspaz »

There's a lot of good stuff in there, but also a bunch of fluff, like Ice Climber or Balloon Fight.

It looks to me like a cash grab: a cheap ARM emulation box with built-in games that can't be expanded, way overpriced for what it is. Consider that this is the same price as the AtGames Genesis (which has a $40 street price), which has 80 games, wireless controllers, and support for expansion by supporting actual Genesis cartridges.

Nintendo's offering, on the other hand, only has 30 games, only has wired controllers, and has no way to play other games... And the UK version doesn't even come with a power adapter, it doesn't even WORK out of the box.

In summary, good idea, terrible price.

EDIT: Clearly it's going to sell really well, so in that sense, it's not overpriced at all. I think $40 is an appropriate price considering the lack of expandability, and $60 would be justified if you could buy more games for it.

Consider this: the hardware required to do this is only worth a few dollars, you'd basically need something on the order of a $5 Pi Zero, plus a case and two controller ports. And consider that the Wii Mini cost $99 CAD ($77 USD) when it first launched, and had a whole lot more hardware going on than this thing did, and had the expandability of playing arbitrary games.
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Re: Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

Post by FBX »

Consider the official novelty of it, and the likelihood of hackers/modders expanding the capabilities. I'm sure it will be a collector's item, so in that regard, it really doesn't matter the profit margin Nintendo is making off the base parts cost.
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Re: Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

Post by mikejmoffitt »

The big difference between this and something like a Pi is that there's a certain guarantee the emulation is going to be decent. While the virtual console sound emulation has been a bit odd in the past, it's always been very good regarding input latency and (not having) video quirks. By quirks, I'm referring to the occasional stutter, vsync tearing, etc. I trust Nintendo to at least not have problems with that. I bet you can gaurantee that the controller plugged into the left port is player 1 every time. USB offers no such gaurantee. Even more so, the emulators available on the Pi and most PC platforms have absolute shit defaults, and the target audience of "pick this up and you can have fun with it" doesn't want to touch any settings. I will never recommend the Pi as even a light gaming platform because of those irritating oddities that never seem to go away.

For $60, it competes well with the virtual console. I will likely get one just to look into messing with it, whether that means injecting new ROMs or ripping out the hardware and making a neat enclosure for an NES clone. It looks like a quality build.

---------------------

Regarding HDMI kits, I've gotten many emails for installations. In case anyone reads here first, I'll be happy to do installs but only once I've returned home in mid-August.
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Guspaz
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Re: Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

Post by Guspaz »

Virtual console NES emulation is notoriously bad, with the Wii U virtual console having an extremely dark and blurry image with a ton of lag.
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Re: Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

Post by Ikaruga11 »

It looks like those NES Controllers can be plugged into a Wii Remote like a Nunchuk and Classic Controller Pro. It would be perfect for playing NES games on the Wii Virtual Console.

I wonder how good the emulation is going to be. "Pre-Installed" makes me believe that these 30 Games won't be the only games available on this. Most importantly, can this output native 240p with scanlines?
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Re: Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

Post by Pasky »

GeneraLight wrote:It looks like those NES Controllers can be plugged into a Wii Remote like a Nunchuk and Classic Controller Pro. It would be perfect for playing NES games on the Wii Virtual Console.

I wonder how good the emulation is going to be. "Pre-Installed" makes me believe that these 30 Games won't be the only games available on this. Most importantly, can this output native 240p with scanlines?
Yes, it's going to output native resolution via HDMI with scanlines....
Spoiler
That's sarcasm...
Ikaruga11
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Re: Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

Post by Ikaruga11 »

Pasky wrote:
GeneraLight wrote:It looks like those NES Controllers can be plugged into a Wii Remote like a Nunchuk and Classic Controller Pro. It would be perfect for playing NES games on the Wii Virtual Console.

I wonder how good the emulation is going to be. "Pre-Installed" makes me believe that these 30 Games won't be the only games available on this. Most importantly, can this output native 240p with scanlines?
Yes, it's going to output native resolution via HDMI with scanlines....
Spoiler
That's sarcasm...
HDMI cannot do 240p? That's terrible. I think I'll just buy one and leave it sealed on my shelf as a collector's item.
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Blair
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Re: Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

Post by Blair »

HDMI can output 240p just fine, unfortunately the vast majority of displays with HDMI support these days are flat panel LCDs, they don't really have visible scanlines regardless of resolution. so scanlines have to be added through some other process (scanline generator, overlay, video shader)

another problem is that a lot of newer TVs have trouble displaying 240p signals, so it's probably easier to output double the resolution or even higher (most panels are 1080p native, so that's the best resolution to output at for them)

I have a feeling this thing will probably have three resolution output choices (480p, 720p, 1080p) and I doubt they'll include any kind of scanline emulation. but you never know.
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Pasky
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Re: Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

Post by Pasky »

GeneraLight wrote:
Pasky wrote:
GeneraLight wrote:It looks like those NES Controllers can be plugged into a Wii Remote like a Nunchuk and Classic Controller Pro. It would be perfect for playing NES games on the Wii Virtual Console.

I wonder how good the emulation is going to be. "Pre-Installed" makes me believe that these 30 Games won't be the only games available on this. Most importantly, can this output native 240p with scanlines?
Yes, it's going to output native resolution via HDMI with scanlines....
Spoiler
That's sarcasm...
HDMI cannot do 240p? That's terrible. I think I'll just buy one and leave it sealed on my shelf as a collector's item.
No it can, its just why would they bother with a 240 resolution if they're going HDMI solution and most tvs are at a much higher native resolution and the casual consumer is concerned with 1080p for the most part. The 240P crowd is minuscule.
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Blair
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Re: Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

Post by Blair »

well if the TV had a decent upscaleler then inputting 240p would be fine, (there are a few of those component to HDMI boxes that will leave the resolution intact and just output 240p over the HDMI port)
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Pasky
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Re: Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

Post by Pasky »

I think you're missing my point and that is Nintendo doesn't give a shit about giving an extremely small segment of people that want 240P....240P.
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Blair
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Re: Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

Post by Blair »

I understand your point perfectly, I was just saying that 240p over HDMI does have a use case for certain flat-panel televisions. (especially now with the release of the HD retro cables, I'm sure you'll see lots of people connecting those up to HDMI converter boxes)

although, Nintendo actually did a pretty good job with 240p support on the original Wii hardware.
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Re: Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

Post by Ikaruga11 »

Pasky wrote:I think you're missing my point and that is Nintendo doesn't give a shit about giving an extremely small segment of people that want 240P....240P.
At least this means we may get the first official emulation of NES games rendered in native 1080p.
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Guspaz
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Re: Hi-Def NES - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

Post by Guspaz »

They'll be rendered at their original resolution and upscaled, just like every other thing that displays 240p images on a 1080p screen. And it probably won't be integer scaling, since 240p -> 1080p is 4.5x. But if it's a decent scaling algorithm, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference from your couch, so it could be fine.
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