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- RetroUSB AVS - Real Hardware HDMI NES Clone Console

dcx4610

Member
Just watched the video and now I have a new concern: Firmware updates...is that going to be a Windows only thing? Am I super-fucked being a Mac user?

Firmware updates are done through Scoreboard. You connect your AVS via USB to your computer, run scoreboard and update from there.

Yes, there is a Mac version. Software and instructions here. It's not clear if the AVS is being shipped with the latest firmware that fixes the audio issues so might as well be ready.

http://vintage.nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=106&threadid=166537
 

NOLA_Gaffer

Banned
Firmware updates are done through Scoreboard. You connect your AVS via USB to your computer, run scoreboard and update from there.

Yes, there is a Mac version. Software and instructions here. It's not clear if the AVS is being shipped with the latest firmware that fixes the audio issues so might as well be ready.

http://vintage.nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=106&threadid=166537

That's awesome, thanks! I might have to invest in a super-long USB cable so I can participate in the scoreboard stuff.
 

Einhandr

Member
Since some of us gaffers here will be getting there AVS's as early as today, can we add something to the OP with our GAF name plus our NIntendoAge account name? That way we can add each other to our friends lists for score comparisons or competitions etc?
 

StAidan

Member
My AVS was delivered this morning, a day earlier than USPS estimated. Can't wait to get home from work and begin a new era of HD NES gaming.
 

Tempy

don't ask me for codes
Still waiting for shipping confirmation, but I can only assume non-US orders get sent out later.
 

dcx4610

Member
Got mine. Haven't had a chance to hook it up yet but I'm impressed but how small it is and it has a good build quality feel to it. The grey is very close to the original NES which I like a lot. I can confirm the console comes shipped with the 1.10 firmware which should be the latest.
 
Got mine. Haven't had a chance to hook it up yet but I'm impressed but how small it is and it has a good build quality feel to it. The grey is very close to the original NES which I like a lot. I can confirm the console comes shipped with the 1.10 firmware which should be the latest.

That's really good news. I wasn't looking forward to updating firmware tonight.
 
Got mine! And I never got around to ordering it until at least a week after it went on sale.

A2JV43Z.jpg
 

AdamT

Member
Played an hour of Super Dodgeball, Mario Bros, and Xexyz. It works wonderfully. I need to clean my carts, though. I got a grey screen or a white "start game" logo when booting a few times.
 

dcx4610

Member
Played it for a few minutes on my 4k TV and it looks and sounds fantastic. Unless you have an incredibly critical eye, I can't imagine anyone having a problem with it.

The scaling looks proper and everything sounds the way it should. I tested fighting Mike Tyson in Punch Out and beat him to test the lag. That's the quickest twitch test I know of and if that passes (it did), I'm happy.
 

r3n4ud

Member
Played it for a few minutes on my 4k TV and it looks and sounds fantastic. Unless you have an incredible critical eye, I can't imagine anyone having a problem with it.

The scaling looks proper and everything sounds the way it should. I tested fighting Mike Tyson in Punch Out and beat him to test the lag. That's the quickest twitch test I know of and if that passes (it did), I'm happy.
Super glad to hear this

Thanks for the quick impressions!
 
Do you think the tight grip will loosen up after awhile? Might it be beneficial to break it in by thrusting a junk cart in a few dozen times?

I'm also curious how the scoreboard works. Does it save completion times, or point values, or whaaaat...?
 
Im not going to post any pics, bc no pics or videos can do it justice. Playing SMB 1 on my 4k tv with the same controller i used in 1986.

Absolutely no comparison to playing on an emulator imo. This thing is world class, really happy i bought it.
 

dcx4610

Member
What does everyone think are the best video settings? How many ticks for vertical and horizontal seems best?

Also, how about how many ticks for the expansion volume?
 

bronk

Banned
Played an hour of Super Dodgeball, Mario Bros, and Xexyz. It works wonderfully. I need to clean my carts, though. I got a grey screen or a white "start game" logo when booting a few times.
My man! I played that, t&c surf and superspike v'ball. I have a vizio m60 4k and this looks incredible on it with amazing input lag.
 
Still waiting for shipping confirmation as I ordered on August 8th. I'm guessing it if doesn't leave tmrw I won't see it in Chicago by the weekend. Crossing my fingers!!!
 

mollipen

Member
Being able to power this thing off my TV's USB port is pretty great. Tried River City Ransom for a bit, and man is it pretty. I know some people don't like the 720p > 1080p thing, but I tried to get up close to check out the upscaling and whether it's my TV or the system, I've for zero complaints.
 
What does everyone think are the best video settings? How many ticks for vertical and horizontal seems best?

Also, how about how many ticks for the expansion volume?

Someone posted a thorough video review on the last page. In that review, I believe they said the best settings to match the CRT ratio is 4x vertical and 5x horizontal, if I remember correctly.
 
So with this outputting only 720p, I basically get 1:1 or 4:3 (or the odd looking 5:3)

If I have a 1080p display, that integer scaled image will not be integer correct anymore when the internal TV scaler brings it up, right?

A previous post talked about basically the only way to get a correct image on a 1080p display would be to render at either:

1) 5:4 (1280x960) resulting in black bars all around a properly rendered image
2) 6:5 (1536x1200) resulting in a slight overscan vertically but still proper square pixels

ie: this device is really ideal mainly for 720p and 4k sets?

Right?

The confusing part is, am I aiming for square pixels? Isn't that really only 1:1? ie: 1080p would be perfectly square at 1280x1200 instead?
 

Leonsito

Member
They posted an update on their facebook, regarding shipping and adding more color palettes (yay!):

Shipping update! USPS failed again to send me the correct boxes, so the ones going out now are primarily west coast, or orders with an AVS plus items other than launch titles. Boxes/manuals for launch titles are now expected to get here around Fri so orders including those will start going out on Sat or Mon.

FPGA update! Multiple palette selection is done with unsaturated v6, YUV v3, and FCEUX added. Need to see if the color differences are even noticeable with the youtube compression.
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.

Mega

Banned
What does everyone think are the best video settings? How many ticks for vertical and horizontal seems best?

Also, how about how many ticks for the expansion volume?

Glad to hear you and others have good impressions. From what I saw in the MLiG video, 4:3 is the best out of the three options although still wide (1:1 is too thin and 5:3 is extremely wide).

Someone posted a thorough video review on the last page. In that review, I believe they said the best settings to match the CRT ratio is 4x vertical and 5x horizontal, if I remember correctly.

That's not possible on AVS. It has a fixed 3x vertical scale (720p).

So with this outputting only 720p, I basically get 1:1 or 4:3 (or the odd looking 5:3)

If I have a 1080p display, that integer scaled image will not be integer correct anymore when the internal TV scaler brings it up, right?

A previous post talked about basically the only way to get a correct image on a 1080p display would be to render at either:

1) 5:4 (1280x960) resulting in black bars all around a properly rendered image
2) 6:5 (1536x1200) resulting in a slight overscan vertically but still proper square pixels

ie: this device is really ideal mainly for 720p and 4k sets?

Right?

The confusing part is, am I aiming for square pixels? Isn't that really only 1:1? ie: 1080p would be perfectly square at 1280x1200 instead?

Everything in your post is correct except the part about a 720p TV being ideal. The best option seems like 4K as it's the only one that will give you an integer upscale. Neither a 768p nor 1080p display will do that, although 1080p upscale doesn't seem to bother anyone.

You don't want square pixels (1:1), it looks too narrow. You want ones that are a bit wide. NES games were designed with roughly 5:4 to 6:5 aspect ratios in mind.
 
So with this outputting only 720p, I basically get 1:1 or 4:3 (or the odd looking 5:3)

If I have a 1080p display, that integer scaled image will not be integer correct anymore when the internal TV scaler brings it up, right?

A previous post talked about basically the only way to get a correct image on a 1080p display would be to render at either:

1) 5:4 (1280x960) resulting in black bars all around a properly rendered image
2) 6:5 (1536x1200) resulting in a slight overscan vertically but still proper square pixels

ie: this device is really ideal mainly for 720p and 4k sets?

Right?

The confusing part is, am I aiming for square pixels? Isn't that really only 1:1? ie: 1080p would be perfectly square at 1280x1200 instead?

I wouldn't sweat it.

Dig this -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGSidnlOhd4

They talk about the settings available to you with the AVS to get an accurate looking image. I suppose it's not perfect, but they seem quite enthusiastic. I was worried about that too, but what they show in the video looks fine to me, but I'm not too picky here. For "perfection", there's always playing NES on a CRT in a neighbor's garage.

Edit: guess I've been corrected.. Well whatever they did in that video. Yeah, that looked great and I'm content with that, heh.

Edit again!: okay I think I get it then. 5:3 is what you can set it to with AVS, but it's not quite right.


Got my shipping notification today!
Can't wait to play this weekend!!
 
You don't want square pixels (1:1), it looks too narrow. You want ones that are a bit wide. NES games were designed with roughly 5:4 to 6:5 aspect ratios in mind.

So are 5:4 1280x960 (letter/pillarbox) or 6:5 1536x1200 (slight vertical overscan of 120px) available on the Analog NT mini? Is there any talk of this, or are we assuming the future is 4k sets and accepting 12:9 (4:3) the way forward displaying NES games?
 

dcx4610

Member
Played through Double Dragon 2 tonight and I love how accurate the AVS is. DDII has a massive amount of video glitches on its borders and AVS retains them perfectly.

Obviously the AVS should be 100% perfect as long as the FPGA is programmed correctly but it's still cool to see it in actual practice. I've seen or heard nothing so far that makes me think something is wrong on all of the games I've thrown at it.

I'm not sure how much time I'll actually devote to the system but I still love knowing I can now play my NES games in high definition with big, beautiful, crisp pixels.
 

televator

Member
Played an hour of Super Dodgeball, Mario Bros, and Xexyz. It works wonderfully. I need to clean my carts, though. I got a grey screen or a white "start game" logo when booting a few times.

Ooh, did the extra sprite mode stop the sprites from flickering all crazy?
 
Played through Double Dragon 2 tonight and I love how accurate the AVS is. DDII has a massive amount of video glitches on its borders and AVS retains them perfectly.

Obviously the AVS should be 100% perfect as long as the FPGA is programmed correctly but it's still cool to see it in actual practice. I've seen or heard nothing so far that makes me think something is wrong on all of the games I've thrown at it.

I'm not sure how much time I'll actually devote to the system but I still love knowing I can now play my NES games in high definition with big, beautiful, crisp pixels.

Love this. Glad you're enjoying it.
 

Mega

Banned
So are 5:4 1280x960 (letter/pillarbox) or 6:5 1536x1200 (slight vertical overscan of 120px) available on the Analog NT mini? Is there any talk of this, or are we assuming the future is 4k sets and accepting 12:9 (4:3) the way forward displaying NES games?

Yes, the NT Mini has both. The Hi-Def NES mod has the first one. You'll have to accept 4:3 on the AVS. It's not the worst thing ever tbh.
 
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