NESRGB board available now

[RagingAvatar]

Great, how do I order? I want one for my Famicom.

[Drakon]

Tim: you should post this over at nesdev if you haven't already.

Drakon: you're really in Toronto? Nes collecting is a small market here, I'm surprised I never bumped into on other local forums (ever visited cgcc.ca?). I run nesreproductions.com and live in downtown Toronto. What a small world.

Yeah I live near ellesmere and victoria park avenue. Send me a pm if you ever feel like meeting and hanging out. I don't spend as much time on forums as I used to. You'll usually find me hanging out on the internet where the latest and greatest upgrades for retro gaming hardware are found.

[Kyle]

Can we pre-order sir? I keep trying to throw money at my laptop but it's not taking it. You are making a grouchy old man's dreams come true.

[RagingAvatar]

Great, how do I order? I want one for my Famicom.

I'll install this kit for 100$, I can install it with model 1 sega genesis rgb ports to make it easy to buy a scart cable.

Wait, wait, wait..
I'm getting confused - are you saying that you can install this in my Famicom?
And is that $100 for fitting it? Or all in? (In which case - dang that's generous!)

[IrishNinja]

oh man, i couldn't be happier! i've been watching this project since getting an XRGB mini last spring, and have been dying for a reasonable alternative to make my NES colors stop looking so washed out (even on the best settings). count me in! hoping you or retro_console_accessories gets a SCART RGB cable soon as well.

anyone know any good modders who'd do this job for a fair price? Ive a top loader that's not been used very much (found it in the box back in '06 or so!), would love to have the lockout chip disabled & maybe the connector board cleaned/replaced to get the most out of this.

[Drakon]

Wait, wait, wait..
I'm getting confused - are you saying that you can install this in my Famicom?
And is that $100 for fitting it? Or all in? (In which case - dang that's generous!)

Order from Tim's website, hire a modder.

[RGB32E]

Built in audio and video amplifier. Useful for the Famicom which does not have A/V outputs already.

Can you share more details about the audio amplifier? I'm interested in how it interfaces with the system and how expansion audio is handled?

[eightbitminiboss]

Tim: you should post this over at nesdev if you haven't already.

Drakon: you're really in Toronto? Nes collecting is a small market here, I'm surprised I never bumped into on other local forums (ever visited cgcc.ca?). I run nesreproductions.com and live in downtown Toronto. What a small world.

Yeah I live near ellesmere and victoria park avenue. Send me a pm if you ever feel like meeting and hanging out. I don't spend as much time on forums as I used to. You'll usually find me hanging out on the internet where the latest and greatest upgrades for retro gaming hardware are found.

Great, how do I order? I want one for my Famicom.

Tim probably will allow me to continue ordering early copies so I can order them if you want me to install it into your system. Keep in mind until the adapter gets made this will only fit inside the case of a toaster nes.

As for getting it to work in a twin famicom there's a couple of possible ways to build an adapter which I need to discuss with Tim.

I'll install this kit for 100$.

Looking forward to that!

[Drakon]

Built in audio and video amplifier. Useful for the Famicom which does not have A/V outputs already.

Can you share more details about the audio amplifier? I'm interested in how it interfaces with the system and how expansion audio is handled?

Expansion isn't handled he didn't know about famicom carts with audio chips until after the kit was made. My guess is it'll be useful for the nes 2 since the nes 2 has the audio amp built into the rf box. All other models with a little reworking of the built in circuit will sound fine.

[lameboyadvance]

Sweet project! Will be perfect for my NES recasing project I'm hoping to do.

...RGB is really great and all, but wouldnt adding a component option be more useful? Component inputs are more common than RGB, and IIRC component Y/CR/CB values can be calculated from RGB values, surely this could be done inside the FPGA, then just provide a switch/jumper to either output straight RGB or the calculated component?

[Darksakul]

I so want this.
Who do I got to kill or throw money at?

[lettuce]

Great been waiting for this. I understand that is uses RGB, S-Video, Composite and Composite video but are these connections on the NESRGB board that you solder to and then u make your own cable up be it RGB Scart plug or BNC cables etc??

You can if you like. I will supply a female 8 pin mini din socket (same as XRGB-MINI) and 3.5mm audio jack socket with the board. I recommend using them as they are easy to mount and I will be supplying SCART cables to suit this configuation.

Great news!!

[game-tech.us]

What are the chances you or someone else will be selling pre-modded systems?

I will not, but surely somebody will.

Tim, this is awesome! Just the thing to cheaply replace the use of the pc10 rgb ppu for nes mods!
I've been getting email after email asking me about this and already have 3 that want it for sure so please make plenty as I may end up making a big batch order!

[ApolloBoy]

Tim, is there any kind of lag introduced by this? I'd love to order one of these but I'd like to know if there's any lag.

[Drakon]

Tim, is there any kind of lag introduced by this? I'd love to order one of these but I'd like to know if there's any lag.

I never noticed any lag, and I've played through some pretty graphic intensive games.

[defor]

It works in a famicom. So far I've got it running just fine in a nes 2, av famicom, 1989 gpm-02 orginal famicom, and my sharp twin famicom. I like my top loaders.

Any chance you can show how you're fitting it in the twin? unless I'm mistaken, the nes board simply will not fit unless it's relocated entirely to not run into the cart slot.

[Drakon]

It works in a famicom. So far I've got it running just fine in a nes 2, av famicom, 1989 gpm-02 orginal famicom, and my sharp twin famicom. I like my top loaders.

Any chance you can show how you're fitting it in the twin? unless I'm mistaken, the nes board simply will not fit unless it's relocated entirely to not run into the cart slot.

Sure thing:





Sorry about all the glue people.

With the twin I tried having the socket relocated about 2 cm further than these pictures and it caused glitching. The one row directly connects to the socket and the other row has shortened ide wires connecting since it's been flipped. This is the only way I was able to get it glitch free, it fits very nicely this way. Tim suspects it has to do with the clock circuit of the twin but until he gets a chance to look at that this is the only known solution. There's not much vertical space on top of the twin famicom pcb under the top half of the case which is why I mounted the kit underneath. The resistors I added on the kit are just to adjust the luma and chroma levels to suite my tv settings.

[defor]

gotcha- that was the general idea I was considering- other than the glue, looks like a very viable solution there.
Thanks!
Hoping the rest of us can get our hands on the mod soon.
Looks really nice!

[undamned]

Any chance you can show how you're fitting it in the twin? unless I'm mistaken, the nes board simply will not fit unless it's relocated entirely to not run into the cart slot.

You can probably relocate that board anywhere in the case if you are patient enough to wire up the whole PPU socket rather than using the straight headers, board-to-board. Of course there's a possibility of noise introduction, depending on if you are close to some interference, so you may need to experiment to find a "quiet" area of the case.
-ud

[Drakon]

gotcha- that was the general idea I was considering- other than the glue, looks like a very viable solution there.
Thanks!
Hoping the rest of us can get our hands on the mod soon.
Looks really nice!

My pleasure, I can't wait until every nes and famicom has one of these, it's a dream come true.

Any chance you can show how you're fitting it in the twin? unless I'm mistaken, the nes board simply will not fit unless it's relocated entirely to not run into the cart slot.

You can probably relocate that board anywhere in the case if you are patient enough to wire up the whole PPU socket rather than using the straight headers, board-to-board. Of course there's a possibility of noise introduction, depending on if you are close to some interference, so you may need to experiment to find a "quiet" area of the case.
-ud

Doesn't work in the twin famicom. Even having 3-4 cm between the original socket and relocated one was enough to throw off the timing of the kit enough to create graphic glitching. I tried it in a relocated ppu socket of my gpm-02 famicom that was relocated around 10 cm and that worked fine so I'm hoping this is just a twin famicom only issue. For this device "noise" doesn't matter it's digital, only timing is an issue with it. With my gpm-02 famicom the power supply setup is missing a few components which made strong jailbars with a rgb ppu chip, with this kit using the same stripped down power circuit and even a relocated ppu socket there's zero video interference.

[defor]

Out of curiosity- offtopic- what is all that other stuff you've got wired up to the bottom of the board?

[Drakon]

Out of curiosity- offtopic- what is all that other stuff you've got wired up to the bottom of the board?

Audio and a couple of traces that I repaired. My twin has two audio circuits.

[undamned]

For this device "noise" doesn't matter it's digital

Firstly, even digital circuits are effected by noise (the question is to what degree), secondly, there is plenty of analog stuff on that board to be affected by noise.
-ud

[BitFaced]

So... This isn't the Universal PPU, right?

[papa_november]

Will this board work in a PlayChoice? Plenty of PC-10s out there with dead or scavenged PPUs.

[undamned]

So... This isn't the Universal PPU, right?

Correct. I really love this design because it retains the original PPU yet boosts it's capabilities. This seems like the best solution for the purist who doesn't want to abandon the original hardware for a full FPGA replacement.

Will this board work in a PlayChoice? Plenty of PC-10s out there with dead or scavenged PPUs.

Haha, then you'd have to scavenge a PPU from an NES!

This may be way out there, Tim, but do you foresee in the future an HDMI version of this board?
-ud

[eightbitminiboss]

So... This isn't the Universal PPU, right?

No, different guy.

Will this board work in a PlayChoice? Plenty of PC-10s out there with dead or scavenged PPUs.

Hmm, that's an interesting idea. Using original NES/Famicom PPU to restore Playchoices...

[defor]

This may be way out there, Tim, but do you foresee in the future an HDMI version of this board?
-ud

Looks like the digital bus might be tappable for it as it stands if there's no future plans for that.

[papa_november]

What about component? Would the encoder you're using support that, or would it be better to just use an external transcoder?

[Drakon]

What about component? Would the encoder you're using support that, or would it be better to just use an external transcoder?

It's the ba7236af, just rgb, s-video and composite video outputs. Using an external one should work fine.