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- RetroUSB AVS - Real Hardware HDMI NES Clone Console

C

cacophony555

Member
r3n4ud said:
My reason is because I'm an idiot :p

Kicking myself now for not going with a Powerpak.
Click to expand...

Why? Everdrive has a number of advantages:

1. Don't need to hold reset key when powering down
2. Alphabetical sorting of ROMs in each folder
3. Cheaper
4. Seems to be a lot more popular. Just search eBay completed auctions for Everdrive N8 (57 results) and PowerPak (zero results)
5. Better compatibility (?): http://www.dbwbp.com/misc/Everdrive_N8_Compatibility_List_(OS_V13).pdf
 
R

r3n4ud

Member
cacophony555 said:
Why? Everdrive has a number of advantages:

1. Don't need to hold reset key when powering down
2. Alphabetical sorting of ROMs in each folder
3. Cheaper
4. Seems to be a lot more popular. Just search eBay completed auctions for Everdrive N8 (57 results) and PowerPak (zero results)
Click to expand...
Ah ya, I'm aware of its advantages. Just that the Powerpak would have arrived by now.

It's all about my impatience :p
 
C

Conezays

Member
Marty Chinn said:
I'm just curious if there are benefits for the Everdrive. It seems like it gets mentioned a lot more than the Powerpak, so I was just curious why people pick one over the other.
Click to expand...

Ah, I was thinking there were clear benefits that the Powerpak had that I was unaware of. For me it's mainly experience, comfort, and ease with past products. I'm sure the Powerpak is more than fine but if it ain't broke, don't fix it kind of thing on my end.

From what I can see though, the Everdrive loads games slightly faster, uses SD cards versus Compact Flash carts (I already have a few spare SD cards, etc.), and is about $20 cheaper, moreso if you are adding in the CF cards.
 
A

AdamT

Member
I have an NES PowerPak and have zero complaints. Does everything I need. I played around with mappers and added Save States and FDS compatability, too.
 
J

Jockel

Member
Having owned both, Everdrive wins easily.
In other news, I picked up my AVS off the customs office today! Makes a good impression so far.
 
C

Conezays

Member
Interested in how the Retrousb wireless controllers turn out. For now, I ordered 2 OEM regular pads and the dogbone one.
 
T

Tempy

don't ask me for codes
Finally got my AVS today. Works great, though I immediately had hand aches playing Recca :) Plus it's not that easy to insert a cart.
 
C

Conezays

Member
Tempy said:
Finally got my AVS today. Works great, though I immediately had hand aches playing Recca :) Plus it's not that easy to insert a cart.
Click to expand...

post-25196-BRB-using-imagination-since-no-B9lT.gif
 
P

Polioliolio

Member
Tempy said:
Finally got my AVS today. Works great, though I immediately had hand aches playing Recca :) Plus it's not that easy to insert a cart.
Click to expand...

I used to feel that way too, but now, with my patented two thumb technique, inserting carts has never been easier!

Okay, it could be easier, but you'll quickly get it down.
 
O

OnPoint

Member
C

CrashPrime

Member
cacophony555 said:
Here are the horizontal stretch options on the AVS (bold are integer scales):

1.000, 1.087, 1.167, 1.250, 1.333, 1.417, 1.500, 1.587, 1.667

I've heard that there is some variance with what's considered the correct PAR, but generally anything around the 1.14-1.25 looks good to me.
Click to expand...

So for integer its 1:1, 4:3, or 5:3, but this is largely not a factor due to TV upscaling right? Will the "shimmer" caused by non integer scaling be present on a 1080p upscaled image?

4 ticks aka 1.25 stretch on the horizontal sounds pretty reasonable if there isn't major issue. I would imagine the importance of integer scales might be more with scanline uniformity.
 
C

cacophony555

Member
CrashPrime said:
So for integer its 1:1, 4:3, or 5:3, but this is largely not a factor due to TV upscaling right? Will the "shimmer" caused by non integer scaling be present on a 1080p upscaled image?

4 ticks aka 1.25 stretch on the horizontal sounds pretty reasonable if there isn't major issue. I would imagine the importance of integer scales might be more with scanline uniformity.
Click to expand...

You still get the shimmer effects even after the TV upscales to 1080p. It's only certain games though and a reasonable workaround for some TVs seems to be putting the AVS in 5:3 mode and then setting the TV to 4:3.
In the one game I tested that eliminated the issue while using ~1.25 PAR.
 
M

MooMilk2929

Junior Member
If you don't hold reset while turning off the power there's a chance your save can erase. It's like that on all NES cartridges except the Everdrive.
 
P

Polioliolio

Member
Conezays said:
I take it others here haven't experienced this problem? Haven't seen it mentioned in other reviews which makes me think it's an isolated issue.
Click to expand...

On nintendoage, it's said that there have been a small number of cases, around 10 so far.

The man behind the AVS has said he'd recommend using epoxy on the USB connector piece, so that's what I did on mine, to secure it to the board.

However, he has also said that all AVS's being shipped out from now on will have extra support on that piece, and for everyone who already ha an AVS, there will be a 3D printed piece that you can simply attack over the connector that will prevent it from coming off the board.
 
C

Conezays

Member
Polioliolio said:
On nintendoage, it's said that there have been a small number of cases, around 10 so far.

The man behind the AVS has said he'd recommend using epoxy on the USB connector piece, so that's what I did on mine, to secure it to the board.

However, he has also said that all AVS's being shipped out from now on will have extra support on that piece, and for everyone who already ha an AVS, there will be a 3D printed piece that you can simply attack over the connector that will prevent it from coming off the board.
Click to expand...

Awesome, thanks for the info. I find it hard tracking down all the threads for AVS over there :p There's not a main hub for all the AVS threads is there? Everything I saw was scattered across the forums; could be lack of coffee though.

I imagine mine will be "fixed" then as it has yet to ship and still "in production." I assume it is safer to order direct from their site then versus ebay/amazon if those are are potentially selling off the last of the initial stock, etc. I'm wanting to get another for my brother in a different country so we can "compete" on the scoreboard (fighting for last place no doubt).
 
M

mosaic

go eat paint
cacophony555 said:
Here are the horizontal stretch options on the AVS (bold are integer scales):

1.000, 1.087, 1.167, 1.250, 1.333, 1.417, 1.500, 1.587, 1.667
Click to expand...


I'm glad you posted that. It's too bad there isn't one set to the 1.143 (8:7) reference for NES/SNES. That also explains why 1.25 looked closer to what I remember way back when.
 
T

thechristoph

Sir!
I've never really noticed this in HD games, probably because there's so much going on to distract you, but none of the integer scaling seems to help scrolling be smooth. Finer background details kinda smear a bit and get darker during scrolling. I think this is monitor ghosting; my TV is about ten years old.

Other than that, I am loving this thing. Played NES for hours today with my Everdrive. I don't know if it's in the manual (I should have RTFM), but I learned that holding B while pressing A on the Start Game option dumps you to the Everdrive menu, rather than starting the game that's in RAM. Awesome. Saved my fat ass many trips to the reset button.

Marty Chinn said:
I'm just curious if there are benefits for the Everdrive. It seems like it gets mentioned a lot more than the Powerpak, so I was just curious why people pick one over the other.
Click to expand...

Seems like loyalty to Bunnyboy to me. He's a cool guy, he made a lot of awesome repro carts, he's really passionate about this hobby. I think people just like to support him.
 
C

Conezays

Member
Decided to spring for another AVS and Everdrive for my brother down in California. Granted, this is partially because I don't want to suffer through playing his mini Genesis through composite on a HDTV when I visit :p
 
L

Link83

Member
cacophony555 said:
But those are lines most people want to lose. There's a reason the AVS cuts them off by default.

5x height with 6x width output only cuts off 5% on the top and 5% on the bottom, both of which are in the overscan area of most CRTs. It also achieves a PAR of 1.2, which looks pretty much perfect. The pixels are razor sharp too because they map 1:1 with what gets displayed.

Outputting 720p is more cost effective and it's probably fine for most people. But 5x by 6x output is better if you care about integer scaled with accurate PAR.
Click to expand...
CrashPrime said:
1536x1200 image rendered to a 1920x1080 display only causing a loss of 120/5 = 24 actual pixels. 12 pixels on top, 12 on bottom. 5% top/5%bottom or a total of 10% of your vertical picture.

Just so happens that the NES/SNES actually draws to 224 and has an overscan of 16 pixels already so really you lose even less.
Click to expand...
Just curious - since integer scaling is simple multiplication, wouldn't the 'hardware hit' be relatively minor? In which case could the AVS's Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA handle multiplying to 1536x1200 and then cropping to 1080p? Or is the FPGA simply not capable of 1080p output?
 
C

cacophony555

Member
Link83 said:
Just curious - since integer scaling is simple multiplication, wouldn't the 'hardware hit' be relatively minor? In which case could the AVS's Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA handle multiplying to 1536x1200 and then cropping to 1080p? Or is the FPGA simply not capable of 1080p output?
Click to expand...

I've read that the FPGA in the AVS lacks the specs to support 1080p. The FPGA in the Hi-Def NES board has a similar limitation (IIRC, Kevin Horton said that he simply doesn't have enough RAM to support 1080p output).
 
L

Leonsito

Member
Finally got mine!

This thing is fantastic, every game boots flawless, and they look amazing, the scanlines in this are very well done imo.
 
T

TSM

Member
cacophony555 said:
I've read that the FPGA in the AVS lacks the specs to support 1080p. The FPGA in the Hi-Def NES board has a similar limitation (IIRC, Kevin Horton said that he simply doesn't have enough RAM to support 1080p output).
Click to expand...

Hi-Def Nes supports 1080p. What it can't support is 5x integer scaling. With 5x scaling the image would be slightly cropped at the top and the bottom of the image. People want this because it would be a significantly larger image at 1080p, but it's just not feasible.
 
C

cacophony555

Member
TSM said:
Hi-Def Nes supports 1080p. What it can't support is 5x integer scaling. With 5x scaling the image would be slightly cropped at the top and the bottom of the image. People want this because it would be a significantly larger image at 1080p, but it's just not feasible.
Click to expand...

Yeah typo. I meant the AVS cannot support 1080p and for similar reasons the Hi-Def NES cannot support cropped 5x by 6x.
 
coughlanio

coughlanio

Member
Considering getting one of these soon. I don't have any NES or Famicom games anymore, but I live in Japan and it might be cool to get into collecting again, and have relatively good access to games.

AVS seems like the best thing on the market right now other than getting an RGB modded AV Famicom and an upscaler? Will the Analogue NT Mini be worth the extra cost?
 
C

Conezays

Member
RavenholmDX said:
Considering getting one of these soon. I don't have any NES or Famicom games anymore, but I live in Japan and it might be cool to get into collecting again, and have relatively good access to games.

AVS seems like the best thing on the market right now other than getting an RGB modded AV Famicom and an upscaler? Will the Analogue NT Mini be worth the extra cost?
Click to expand...

Your mileage may vary but the online scoreboard option is a pretty cool unique benefit to the AVS to me.

I ordered mine a week ago (and one for my brother) and inquired with support when it would be shipping.

Update: Got a response; all good and shipping soon.
 
Lynd7

Lynd7

Member
thechristoph said:
I've never really noticed this in HD games, probably because there's so much going on to distract you, but none of the integer scaling seems to help scrolling be smooth. Finer background details kinda smear a bit and get darker during scrolling. I think this is monitor ghosting; my TV is about ten years old.

Other than that, I am loving this thing. Played NES for hours today with my Everdrive. I don't know if it's in the manual (I should have RTFM), but I learned that holding B while pressing A on the Start Game option dumps you to the Everdrive menu, rather than starting the game that's in RAM. Awesome. Saved my fat ass many trips to the reset button.



Seems like loyalty to Bunnyboy to me. He's a cool guy, he made a lot of awesome repro carts, he's really passionate about this hobby. I think people just like to support him.
Click to expand...

The shimmering was hard for me to tell with the games I had. But, I tried Zelda 2 last night and its easily noticeable when not using one of the integer scale options. On the overworld, the green grass lets you see it clearly.

So I am now settled on the 5:3 setting with TV at 4:3 now. Seems the best option for me.
 
L

Lettuce

Member
cacophony555 said:
1.000, 1.087, 1.167, 1.250, 1.333, 1.417, 1.500, 1.587, 1.667

I've heard that there is some variance with what's considered the correct PAR, but generally anything around the 1.14-1.25 looks good to me.
Click to expand...

How do you see those values in the settings?, all i have is a bar for the horizontal setting?

Also for people with flash carts i suggest using, 240p-test-suite for checking correct aspect ratios, input lag and scrolling artifacts....

http://junkerhq.net/xrgb/index.php/240p_test_suite

download
https://sourceforge.net/projects/testsuite240p/files/NES/

On another note, if you using a flash cart in the NES slot and load up say the JPN version of Castlevania 3, do you still get expansion audio or do you only get that using the Famicom slot??
 
P

paulrobinbrown

Neo Member
Lettuce said:
Yeah i got stung £38 for import duty also :(
Click to expand...

Mine was £45.60 with clearance charges!

No regrets though, the compatibility and picture quality are amazing. The ability to switch NTSC / PAL is great, something impossible on real hardware.

I've had one minor issue with Battletoads but I've emailed support who are looking into it..
 
L

Leonsito

Member
I had to pay $69 for the shipping, and then 76€ in taxes and import duties, I was mad angry, but when the AVS arrived and I plugged it everything was forgotten, I love it.
 
L

lunch_box

Member
Shit!! I hadn't even considered import tax!!
Can anyone please give me rough dimensions of the box and it's weight please??
I may have found a cheaper way of shipping it into the uk!!
Thanks
 
C

Conezays

Member
Looking forward to my import fees as well in Canada, lol. Hopefully not too bad.

Does anyone know if the high score function is working yet for Mac users? Much appreciated.
 
R

r3n4ud

Member
I'm having such a great time with this console! Love having my kids playing as well. If they decide to do the same with Super Nes, I'm all over it.
 
C

Conezays

Member
So mine finally arrived. I was happy this morning to see that the package was out for delivery. When I came back from work I saw the mail delivery truck driving past my address and thus assuming the package was there. No, they left a notice despite someone being home (and confirming with me no one had rung :p Classic.) Well, I did a U-turn and drove after the truck with notice in hand and asked for the package, lol. You think I'm going to wait another 24 hours for my AVS?!

Anyways, I haven't yet updated the firmware so I'm not sure if that improves performance at all but I'm a little disappointed with the scrolling thus far. Upon starting Super Mario Bros., it became very noticeable when running to the right of the screen, etc. I haven't seen this mentioned too much so I'm curious what other users here feel about the scrolling on the AVS or if the problem is nonexistent for them. Feel free to recommend settings if they mitigate these issues at all! Cheers.

Edit: Although I've seen this video already they do discuss this issue:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGSidnlOhd4&feature=youtu.be&t=416

Guess I'll try playing at that ratio despite it indeed looking a little wide.

2nd Edit:

I can definitely confirm (and agree with MLIG's video) that the default video settings when playing Contra produce little to no noticeable shimmering especially compared to other settings. Perhaps something to consider for a firmware update? Either way, I don't want to sound like I'm too negative on the device; the image quality is fantastic and the lag seems impercetible control-wise. Does anyone get a loud sort of garbled sound when powering off the system though? Seems to vary a bit depending on if powering off from the menu/a game.
 
C

Conezays

Member
Updating the firmware mitigated my sound issues (my brother has had none). Currently attempting some high scores on Tetris but that's about it so far. Absolutely loving the thing!
 
L

linkboy

Member
I'm looking into picking one of these up.

I've got both Zelda, all 6 Mega Man's, Mike Tyson's Punchout, Ninja Gaiden, Tecmo Super Bowl and all three Mario games with no way to play them.

Has anyone used this with the 8bitdo NES adapters? I've used their adapters with the SNES and their SNES controllers and it works great, would love to use the NES30 Pro with this.
 
StAidan

StAidan

Member
linkboy said:
I'm looking into picking one of these up.

I've got both Zelda, all 6 Mega Man's, Mike Tyson's Punchout, Ninja Gaiden, Tecmo Super Bowl and all three Mario games with no way to play them.

Has anyone used this with the 8bitdo NES adapters? I've used their adapters with the SNES and their SNES controllers and it works great, would love to use the NES30 Pro with this.
Click to expand...

I borrowed an 8bitdo Retro Receiver for testing a couple weeks ago, it worked fine on the AVS.
 
W

Westonian

Member
I ordered one of these yesterday. I figured it was worth an extra $130 to not deal with the stress of trying to find an NES Mini this holiday.

My NES collection isn't huge, but I have many of my favorites. Having this will definitely motivate me to expand my collection.

Anyone know how long they take to ship?
 
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