MooMilk2929
Junior Member
Why would you buy a console for 450 dollars if you're just gonna load roms on it? Just get a raspberry pi.
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Analogue NT mini announced - 1080P FGPA NES, $449, Jan 2017, aluminum unibody, 8Bitdo
- Thread starter Chittagong
- Start date
Beer Monkey
Member
Ew, lag and inaccuracies abound.
Please stop. Do some research, because you don't know what you're saying.
Here you go.
You can see the lines are weirdly thin and sharp at the same time... it's not a convincing effect. Basic scanlines look better on everything else.
I'm also not happy with the palettes. In these shots I'm using the best one, FCEUX. I left the Hi-Def running with SMB on the Everdrive... I went and fired up my SMB1 cart on NESRGB connected to a CRT in the other room, Improved palette (same FCEUX). The NESRGB looks a lot more vibrant and saturated, while the Hi-Def is dull and purplish (Beware palette is worse, literally purple sky). I also tried a NES emulator on my GPD XD handheld and colors are nice and similar to the NESRGB.
I compared to MLIG's video on the Hi-Def NES and their LoZ colors look the same to mine. https://youtu.be/TI60A3DpI6w?t=4m3s
GPD XD scanlines and color:
cacophony555
Member
Isn't this possibly related to the difference in color, contrast, and picture settings between the two TVs? Unless you're comparing on the same TV or both TVs have been calibrated it doesn't seem like an apples to apples comparison.
Beer Monkey
Member
Wow, Mega, that's really not good.
Hopefully the Mini has better algorithms.
Hopefully the Mini has better algorithms.
I tried the Hi-Def NES on my IPS monitor (via the capture card) and Panasonic plasma (direct connection). Identical bad colors. Again, the purplish SMB screenshot is a direct capture... it's not being altered by my display.
I tried SMB1 on my NESRB Famicom on both my RGB BVM and JVC (S-video converter). Not great smartphone pics but you can see the nice, normal colors. The NESRGB is set to Improved which is supposed to be the same FCEUX palette.
Here's my Hi-Def compared to MLIGs. Same bad colors.
Seriously?=O
cacophony555
Member
Very interesting, and something I hadn't noticed before. It looks like the AVS has the same purple color: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yTKQ9afBQA
Hopefully somebody can explain what's going on here. I know a lot of thought was put into those palettes.
edit: not that it really explains much but I found this: http://www.famicomworld.com/forum/index.php?topic=11846.0
Maybe you should do some reading on the finner datails of emulating Vs. simulating. Heres a freebie: You know what's inside every legit cart copy Earthbound that people are paying out the ass for? ... A ROM.
Well, piracy via the Everdrive is a side effect of being a perfect clone. That's completely different from saying "put your ROMs on the console SD card, but don't ask where to get them".
MooMilk2929
Junior Member
I just didn't get why you'd get a console and not even use carts. Instead want to load roms on it.
^You can't load roms into the Analogue. You need to use a flash cart like the Everdrive. In the case of the Everdrive, 99% of NES/Famicom games run as accurately as the original cart. There are tangible benefits to playing on original hardware and FPGA console vs. an emulation machine like the Pi. Using real carts is only a part of it.
Thanks for the link. What I gather is that it really shouldn't be purple. The last post said it was fixed by changing a TV setting, but in this case the problem is display-independent.
I should also add that it's not just SMB. Every game looks drab as hell to some degree. The first one I noticed was Zanac which I recently beat on NESRGB. On Hi-Def, it doesn't look anywhere near this:
This is FCEUGX on the Wii U's vWii. This is actually veering into purple but it's still not as bad. I'd say halfway between NESRGB and Hi-Def.
Thanks for the link. What I gather is that it really shouldn't be purple. The last post said it was fixed by changing a TV setting, but in this case the problem is display-independent.
I should also add that it's not just SMB. Every game looks drab as hell to some degree. The first one I noticed was Zanac which I recently beat on NESRGB. On Hi-Def, it doesn't look anywhere near this:
This is FCEUGX on the Wii U's vWii. This is actually veering into purple but it's still not as bad. I'd say halfway between NESRGB and Hi-Def.
NOLA_Gaffer
Banned
I tried SMB1 on my NESRB Famicom on both my RGB BVM and JVC (S-video converter).
Tell me more of this RGB to S-Video converter.
It's very off-topic for this thread so I'll PM you.
Polioliolio
Member
That looks delicious. The perfect colors.
cacophony555
Member
Assuming this press shot is accurate, the NT mini looks correct:
NOLA_Gaffer
Banned
I really love the bezel of that JVC set. It's so very 80s. The perfect square image above it is offputting by comparison.
cacophony555
Member
And it looks like the original Analogue Nt had correct colors as well:
https://youtu.be/H2N47GwylC8?t=3m39s
https://youtu.be/H2N47GwylC8?t=3m39s
PumpkinSpice
Banned
RGB yes, HDMI no.
That press shot looks like a Photoshop composite image (nothing wrong with that).
lol what's with his earthquake video capture?
Have people discussed this before or brought it to Kevtris and Analogue's attention? Or made AVS/bunnyboy aware of it? The latter is just now coming out so it's understandable if this is new. But I'm wondering how they all missed this or if they just chose to ignore it. It's really egregious like from the moment you jump into a game whose look you recognize. Beware palette is straight up useless.
lol what's with his earthquake video capture?
Have people discussed this before or brought it to Kevtris and Analogue's attention? Or made AVS/bunnyboy aware of it? The latter is just now coming out so it's understandable if this is new. But I'm wondering how they all missed this or if they just chose to ignore it. It's really egregious like from the moment you jump into a game whose look you recognize. Beware palette is straight up useless.
sixteen-bit
Member
christophertaber
Neo Member
NEOGAF: Christopher Taber from Analogue here.
Glad to see you folks are as excited about the Nt mini as we are. I'm here to post some details and address a couple things.
FPGA Compatibility
Do not worry about compatibility. If we couldn't design a perfectly compatible product while utilizing an FPGA, then we wouldn't do it. We've got a great team. I can pretty much guarantee that our lead engineer, Kevin "Kevtris" Horton, knows more about NES hardware (in terms of engineering) than anyone else in the world. The amount of time he spent designing the Nt mini's core (over 5000 hours) is truly unbelievable. Have faith, we will deliver.
Nt mini Features
We designed the Nt mini to be powerful and upgradeable. We have substantial room for more features and we plan to continue to develop for it after release. We'd like to offer even more features and make the Nt mini everything it can be. If there is a feature you'd like to see implemented in the Nt mini, let us know here.
Nt mini vs AVS
We're not interested in making a product that does some things "ok". The Nt mini is engineered with an Altera Cyclone V FPGA ($50USD) vs the AVS's Xilinx Spartan-6 ($19USD) FPGA. In terms of the NES, it is basically without limits. I'll let the technical specifications of the Nt mini speak for itself.
If you'd like to see all the tech specs along side a comparison chart for the Nt mini vs the AVS, feel free to check it out here: bit.ly/ntvsavs
NEOGEO
After over 5 years, our NEOGEO line of products was retired earlier this year. I wish we could keep offering them, but they simply take too much time. Our energy is focused on other things at the moment. We of course continue to offer support to every single one of our NEOGEO customers, now and forever. Whoever says otherwise is spreading misinformation. We almost always reply to emails within 24 hours.
Questions
The Nt mini is a technically complex product and we're here to answer any questions. If you have questions you'd like answered, please contact us directly here: support.analogue.co
Reaching out to us on Twitter is another easy way to get a question answered.
Glad to see you folks are as excited about the Nt mini as we are. I'm here to post some details and address a couple things.
FPGA Compatibility
Do not worry about compatibility. If we couldn't design a perfectly compatible product while utilizing an FPGA, then we wouldn't do it. We've got a great team. I can pretty much guarantee that our lead engineer, Kevin "Kevtris" Horton, knows more about NES hardware (in terms of engineering) than anyone else in the world. The amount of time he spent designing the Nt mini's core (over 5000 hours) is truly unbelievable. Have faith, we will deliver.
Nt mini Features
We designed the Nt mini to be powerful and upgradeable. We have substantial room for more features and we plan to continue to develop for it after release. We'd like to offer even more features and make the Nt mini everything it can be. If there is a feature you'd like to see implemented in the Nt mini, let us know here.
Nt mini vs AVS
We're not interested in making a product that does some things "ok". The Nt mini is engineered with an Altera Cyclone V FPGA ($50USD) vs the AVS's Xilinx Spartan-6 ($19USD) FPGA. In terms of the NES, it is basically without limits. I'll let the technical specifications of the Nt mini speak for itself.
If you'd like to see all the tech specs along side a comparison chart for the Nt mini vs the AVS, feel free to check it out here: bit.ly/ntvsavs
NEOGEO
After over 5 years, our NEOGEO line of products was retired earlier this year. I wish we could keep offering them, but they simply take too much time. Our energy is focused on other things at the moment. We of course continue to offer support to every single one of our NEOGEO customers, now and forever. Whoever says otherwise is spreading misinformation. We almost always reply to emails within 24 hours.
Questions
The Nt mini is a technically complex product and we're here to answer any questions. If you have questions you'd like answered, please contact us directly here: support.analogue.co
Reaching out to us on Twitter is another easy way to get a question answered.
PumpkinSpice
Banned
What else can you really add?
poppos2097
Member
Probably extra sound chip emulation like the Sunsoft Gimmick chips, Castlevania 3, etc.
Beer Monkey
Member
I've met Kevin three times, he sold me a Kevtris cart and played a few games with me in '96 (button bounce on my Wico sticks caused some issues with the game), he demoed the just-completed Bankzilla for me in '97 (and modded my Turbo Duo), and demoed his SID Player a couple years after that.
The last thing I'm worried about is compatibility with Kevin engineering it from the ground up.
I ordered day one, looking forward to getting my hands on the Mini. Thanks for opening up a dialog here.
PumpkinSpice
Banned
Does it even need to emulate those when you have real carts with those chips?
Chittagong
Gold Member
Always a pleasure to have you in an Analogue Nt thread, Christopher. You guys have certainly turned things around since I started posting threads - Mini looks great too. Tempted but happy with my OG.
Hope you have Kevtris heads down on an Analogue Sn next..!
Hope you have Kevtris heads down on an Analogue Sn next..!
InfiniteNine
Rolling Girl
Kinda want but it's a bit pricey I'd probably crack if I could get a red one and see feedback on it's compatibility from others.
The Hi-Def NES mod already has sound emulation for all those chips. Very useful with the NES Everdrive which sucks or doesn't have sound for some of these.
cacophony555
Member
There are some good ideas already posted here: https://support.analogue.co/hc/en-u...48-Suggest-a-Feature-for-the-Analogue-Nt-mini
I like the native save state support and custom palette ideas
Yeah, you shouldn't do that.
Beer Monkey
Member
I have a really, really important suggestion for the Mini.
Some TVs, mostly plasma on the older side, and OLED sets being sold today and in the the future, have issues with image retention and burn-in. Playing a windowboxed NES/Fami game has great potential for 'burning in' these display panels. With scan-line effects, there's potential to literally burn-in a horizontal line pattern as some lines are blacked out and/or at least dimmed.
To that end the Mini needs to do the following:
Allow the user to select to color of the borders aka the inactive portion of the screen. I suggest something like full black, 20% grey, 40% grey, 60% grey; you get the picture.
Additionally there should be an orbiter function that can be engaged to have the active portion of the image periodically move a pixel left/right/up/down in a circular pattern. How large the orbiting range is should potentially be user-configured, as well as how often to shift the image through the orbit.
Functions like this should probably be through an 'advanced option' setting that enables a 'power user' sort of mode, as this would allow the main interface to remain less complex and and avoid potentially confusing less casual users.
Some TVs, mostly plasma on the older side, and OLED sets being sold today and in the the future, have issues with image retention and burn-in. Playing a windowboxed NES/Fami game has great potential for 'burning in' these display panels. With scan-line effects, there's potential to literally burn-in a horizontal line pattern as some lines are blacked out and/or at least dimmed.
To that end the Mini needs to do the following:
Allow the user to select to color of the borders aka the inactive portion of the screen. I suggest something like full black, 20% grey, 40% grey, 60% grey; you get the picture.
Additionally there should be an orbiter function that can be engaged to have the active portion of the image periodically move a pixel left/right/up/down in a circular pattern. How large the orbiting range is should potentially be user-configured, as well as how often to shift the image through the orbit.
Functions like this should probably be through an 'advanced option' setting that enables a 'power user' sort of mode, as this would allow the main interface to remain less complex and and avoid potentially confusing less casual users.
cacophony555
Member
They just confirmed 240p for RGB/Component on twitter: https://twitter.com/analogue_co/status/770121327558680576
sixteen-bit
Member
That's good to hear. Looking forward to impressions.
I'm not sure how this thing took this long for me to discover, but I'm very excited and want to pre-order this.
But watching some videos of the original NT, I was noticing quite a few folks having issues with games like Castlevania 3, Mega Man 2, and Mike Tyson's Punchout...
Were these all just unfortunate isolated issues with these folks and there weren't (shouldn't) be a problem in general? Or was it a known issue with all units for whatever reason?
I can't really find anything about these possible problems anywhere.
Would love to have this, but if it won't play like half of my collection then no thanks...
But watching some videos of the original NT, I was noticing quite a few folks having issues with games like Castlevania 3, Mega Man 2, and Mike Tyson's Punchout...
Were these all just unfortunate isolated issues with these folks and there weren't (shouldn't) be a problem in general? Or was it a known issue with all units for whatever reason?
I can't really find anything about these possible problems anywhere.
Would love to have this, but if it won't play like half of my collection then no thanks...
I haven't hear or read any reports of these games not working in an NT. Analogue has also confirmed near 100% games working from original carts. I can confirm ALL my games work flawlessly on my NT, including Castlevania 3 (with perfect sound for famicom version!) and Mega Man 2. The only game that's not working is Holy Diver, but maybe that could be cart related? I'm still waiting for anyone else to try that cart on the NT.
Maybe the issues you heard were for these games played on an Everdrive? With the latest update I beleive all Everdrive issues were solved
MooMilk2929
Junior Member
It's funny that Holy Diver didn't work and the Analog NT used original famicom hardware. That was a famicom game, right?
The issues only existed with the HDMI Kit add on and was fixed by a firmware update a long time ago. All those games work just fine now.
beelulzebub
Banned
Castlevania 3, Mega Man 2, Punch-Out, and Holy Diver all work with no issues on my NT.
EDIT:
I'm glad I popped in here. I always thought the palette on my HDMI NT was off but never saw anyone else say so. This is really disappointing. I wonder if there's any way to fix it with a firmware update?
Sweet, you're the first person that can help me in this. For Holy Diver the issue is only apparent after dying, when your character sprite disappears, but th game still runs, or when you approach the end of the first level when the screen is garbled and the game freezes. Would be great if you could verify this!
PumpkinSpice
Banned
Maybe contact Kevtris and see if he'd do a HiDef-NES firmware with a different palette?
Edit: actually I checked: https://www.game-tech.us/product/hi-def-nes/
game-tech.us said:
So maybe it's changeable in the menu.
RadarScope1
Member
I'm just now hearing about the mini. I wasn't on board the first time but I might bite on this one.
None of the palettes are very good. In my observations:
FCEUX = purplish and dull
Beware = worse, very purple
Playchoice = yellowish and garish (literally its name in the NESRGB mod)
B&W = self-explanatory
PumpkinSpice
Banned
Yeah you or someone should try contacting Kevtris. I bet this would be an easy change.
cacophony555
Member
This was asked on Twitter today and you can see Analogue's response:
https://twitter.com/Nes4win/status/771052936281460737
They think the FCEUX palette is correct and any deviations have to do with display or video capture settings. If you disagree add your thoughts to the conversation on twitter and hopefully it will get addressed. They seem responsive to people that ask questions on twitter.
Beer Monkey
Member
Knowing Kevin I'd suspect he probably used an oscilloscope and test patterns to match the FCEUX to output from a real system running the test patterns.
I'm not on Twitter I think.
But reminder that this is all through a Hi-Def modded AV Famicom, not the unreleased NT Mini using the upgraded Hi-Def mod using a different FPGA. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison and if he says the NT Mini is fine, I'll take his word for it. The only reason we're talking about it here is because I mentioned the Hi-Def doesn't have the Mini's 5X scaling (scanlines suck at 4X and supposedly 5X helps)... someone asked me to post direct captures of the lines and as a tangent I mentioned hating the color palettes.
Re: the Hi-Def mod, it looks identically purple both directly connected to my plasma and fed into my IPS monitor via my capture card. I'm pretty sure it will be the same if I try a few more display options. Everything else NES related I have tried with the above methods (vWii, Retroarch) looks good. The problem pops up in others' videos.
MLiG
https://youtu.be/TI60A3DpI6w?t=9m44s
Random youtuber
https://youtu.be/Y1ApN1yGOVU?t=2m36s
Another
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvEqF72vkiM
Horrible offscreen video but same purple color
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2blS5EAJ-cY
But reminder that this is all through a Hi-Def modded AV Famicom, not the unreleased NT Mini using the upgraded Hi-Def mod using a different FPGA. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison and if he says the NT Mini is fine, I'll take his word for it. The only reason we're talking about it here is because I mentioned the Hi-Def doesn't have the Mini's 5X scaling (scanlines suck at 4X and supposedly 5X helps)... someone asked me to post direct captures of the lines and as a tangent I mentioned hating the color palettes.
Re: the Hi-Def mod, it looks identically purple both directly connected to my plasma and fed into my IPS monitor via my capture card. I'm pretty sure it will be the same if I try a few more display options. Everything else NES related I have tried with the above methods (vWii, Retroarch) looks good. The problem pops up in others' videos.
MLiG
https://youtu.be/TI60A3DpI6w?t=9m44s
Random youtuber
https://youtu.be/Y1ApN1yGOVU?t=2m36s
Another
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvEqF72vkiM
Horrible offscreen video but same purple color
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2blS5EAJ-cY
beelulzebub
Banned
I completed level 1 (and died many times along the way), and can confirm I got to level 2 with no issue.
Do you have an Analogue NT and an Everdrive Famicom N8? I can speak from experience that these two don't always get along.
Yeah, and those palettes match what Mega describes below on my end. However...
After doing some more digging around on the subject, Analogue may actually be right after all.
Maybe a lot of color discrepancies simply come down to the NES using a YIQ/NTSC (sometimes derided as Never Twice the Same Color by professionals) color space and that a lot of colors simply can't be translated 1:1 into RGB/rec.709. Many colors from the former may be out of spec with the latter.
If I run SMB1 on higan or Nestopia, two emulators that pride themselves on being the most accurate NES experience out there, I got a palette virtually identical to that of my NT (nestopia was exactly on. higan was slightly more vibrant with other colors that weren't the sky).
In order to get those bright blue skies on a modern set, you may need to futz with the NES' color palette in such a way that to get that sky as bright blue as you remember/prefer, you'd likely knock even more colors way out of line. You may very well end up with a palette that is even more inaccurate at the end of it.
These screens captured using the Hi-Def NES mod not from an NT looks identical to my NT.
cacophony555
Member
To be clear, they are claiming the original NT is correct ("OG Nt'), which I assume would be the same as a hi-def modified AV Famicom.
FWIW, the 2nd and 3rd video examples you gave are both using BEWARE palette. It's not clear what's being used for the 1st and 4th one.