• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

ArsTechnica: Hackers unlock NES Classic, upload new games via USB cable

Varth

Member
Yes, i've done it tonight - works no issues (at least so far)

C1lO1wnVIAA-M7r.jpg

So you can put english ROMs into a famicom I see. Does the memory house a whole romset? Can you run translated patched ROMs?
 

Pachinko

Member
I almost feel like console vs PC all over again. Almost.

People who bought NES Classic want simplicity and plug&play nature of a console. The hacking is as simple as loading a song to iPhone. RPi is basically a mini PC that you need to put together and configure to make it works and some people just don't want to deal with any of that.

I don't know why it's so difficult to understand for some.

Yeah, seems pretty simple to me - with the NES classic or Famicon mini you've got a professionally built shell (as opposed to perhaps a shoddy 3d printed mess/ hours of work) that already plays NES games - 30 of them with no extra work required AND it comes with an officially released NES controller. Even this "soft mod" requires under an hour of work and can then load up the device or even replace some of the games found on there. The NES has over 700 games but being honest , I'd be hard pressed to come up with over 60 that I'd actually want to come back to for more than 5 minutes... the 30 that are on there even may as well be 20 instead.

A retropie device is just more work all around , finding emulators , tweaking settings , the much lower legality of the whole affair (at least if you don't hack a nes mini , the 30 titles included are "owned"). Certainly , you can use the retro pie as a pocket emulator of many things (8 / 16 bit , hell even neo geo probably works) but all of them require work that the nes mini does not. Most especially the simple act of putting it into a nice shell.
 
Cross posting this and consider it a final warning.



1) We get it, the Raspberry Pi is a cool solution. It's not the same thing and there are reasons to want the NES Classic.
2) Accusing everyone of piracy when you don't know their situation is irritating noise and is something that is explicitly against the rules in any sort of discussion about console hacking for this reason.

Stop spamming this thread and the other one with the same stuff over and over again. We heard you the first hundred times.

THANK YOU.
 

fester

Banned
Has there been any indication that Nintendo is going to release more of these? I wanted one before xmas and figured I'd just wait. Now it's tapping into my deep urge to tinker on top of the already high nostalgic factor. I really, really do not want to reward a scalper.
 

shanafan

Member
Best Buy's website did have stock (briefly) this past week.

Best to follow @Wario64 and @videogamedeals on Twitter, and push notifications of their tweets to your phone's lock screen. It's only way to stay ahead of the game, than saying there's been no restock when there actually is here and there ;)
 

Nairume

Banned
Cross posting this and consider it a final warning.



1) We get it, the Raspberry Pi is a cool solution. It's not the same thing and there are reasons to want the NES Classic.
2) Accusing everyone of piracy when you don't know their situation is irritating noise and is something that is explicitly against the rules in any sort of discussion about console hacking for this reason.

Stop spamming this thread and the other one with the same stuff over and over again. We heard you the first hundred times.
Sorry, I'll let it rest.

Has there been any indication that Nintendo is going to release more of these? I wanted one before xmas and figured I'd just wait. Now it's tapping into my deep urge to tinker on top of the already high nostalgic factor. I really, really do not want to reward a scalper.
I think they have stated that they are planning on putting out more.
 
Morning, everyone.

Any additional info I should add to the OP? I saw there was mention in the thread of a handy program someone created to make adding and removing ROMs easier, but also that it was possibly setting off virus warnings.
 

BFIB

Member
Morning, everyone.

Any additional info I should add to the OP? I saw there was mention in the thread of a handy program someone created to make adding and removing ROMs easier, but also that it was possibly setting off virus warnings.

I just tried that method and yeah, instant malware quarantine. I wouldn't recommend it.
 

Jubern

Member
Has there been any indication that Nintendo is going to release more of these? I wanted one before xmas and figured I'd just wait. Now it's tapping into my deep urge to tinker on top of the already high nostalgic factor. I really, really do not want to reward a scalper.

They definitely are releasing more, they just sell out almost instantly.

In France we have a wario64-like twitter user who posts about NES Classic Mini restocks multiple times a day, but they usually disappear within 5 minutes of his posting.
 

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.
So how much extra internal memory does the nes classic have?

It appears to have 512MB, of which ~384mb are accessible to the user and can be used for rom storage but it's also used for save state storage (each save is a couple of kb).

Could they add cheat support? Like Game Genie?

I think you could recompile the .nes files with Game Genie cheat codes "baked in" before pushing them to the device, but that's probably it. This hack simply mimics what Nintendo did when they built the image file for the NES Classic. Adding something like cheat support would be a whole different level of hack.

I'm not saying it's impossible, but we would probably need a different kind of hack (true CFW) to make that happen.
 

shanafan

Member
I just tried that method and yeah, instant malware quarantine. I wouldn't recommend it.

GBATemp has been around for years. They wouldn't distribute software that is harmful to your computer.

Your antivirus detects that it's code is used to alter programming, so it blocks it by default. My match editor for WWE2K16 also comes up as a "malicious" program.

These are not malicious programs.
 

fester

Banned
Best Buy's website did have stock (briefly) this past week.

Best to follow @Wario64 and @videogamedeals on Twitter, and push notifications of their tweets to your phone's lock screen. It's only way to stay ahead of the game, than saying there's been no restock when there actually is here and there ;)

Thanks, added them to Twitter and will keep an eye out.
 
Now you can fix the library to include the best NES game of all time, Little Samson.

LMFTFY: Mr. Gimmick.

Just as an FYI, here's a list of mappers the emulator supports. It's pretty limited so no weird-ass chips:

0 (NROM), 1 (MMC1), 2 (UxROM), 3 (CNROM), 4 (MMC3), 5 (MMC5), 7 (AxROM), 9 (MMC2), 10 (MMC4)

Where did this information come from, and what does that do for general compatibility? Excuse my ignorance on mappers being used in popular games.

Will this allow the heavy hitters like BattleToads, TMNT and DuckTales run?

What are some of the big titles that won't work?
 

truly101

I got grudge sucked!
Alright, I got it up and running. All but 1 game works fine (as far as I've tested). Is it pretty much the same process to delete a game? Do I need to dump the kernel again or will it recognize the NES classic one its connected?
 
GBATemp has been around for years. They wouldn't distribute software that is harmful to your computer.

Your antivirus detects that it's code is used to alter programming, so it blocks it by default. My match editor for WWE2K16 also comes up as a "malicious" program.

These are not malicious programs.

Yeah. It is a couple of things.

One is the file prevalence check. A lot of modern antivirus apps have this - basically it looks to see "Hey. How many people have seen this file?". When you have millions of users it is a fairly good check for your average PC user.

Number two is heuristic behavior. I.E. "what does this code appear to be doing?". Any hacking exploit stuff will look like malware at a glance to AV because it behaves similarly. I.E. (getting more technical) stuff like TFTP attempts, buffer overflows, suspicious looking USB device access. Etc.

(I'm a cybersecurity incident guy these days)
 

BriGuy

Member
I tried to patch in Contra for fun, but that program linked awhile back doesn't really work. It asks me to install a driver and the PC just can't or won't find it. It's just as well though. I'd hate to brick my mini just for another means to access a game I can beat in my sleep.
 

OmegaFax

Member
Ok found the problem and I was able to upload the customer kernel and all the new games. Instructions say to wait for the power LED to go off and then restart the NES Mini. Did that, now what?

How long did it take until the red LED on the system went off? I think it's been a good ten minutes since it's completed.
 

timshundo

Member
For whatever reason, Friday The 13th NES is my family's de facto NES game. Our grandma bought it for us when we were kids not knowing what it was. She probably grabbed any NES game off the shelf at Kmart and handed it to us wrapped in a plastic bag for xmas...

Anyway my dad was confused when Friday The 13th wasn't preloaded into the Classic NES I got him for xmas. Like how could Nintendo the greatest game ever made??

So this hack is a godsend. I really only need to load in one more game. :)
 
...So, input lag?

I see conflicting reports on whether it's horrible or not.

From what I can tell, it depends on your HDTV. And it's not just input lag, but sound also lags as well. It's not horrible on my Sony, but it's noticeable. Maybe 1/4th of a second lag. (I am probably exaggerating...)

I got used to it after a minute or two.
 

Koren

Member
Input lag is down to your TV not the nes mini
The TV set may be the main source of lag, but if you have a low-lag TV set, the Mini has a tiny input lag by itself. Probably because of the way they handle HDMI.

Anyone who can be bothered to hack/mod already has the option of just running an emulator on a raspberry pi without any of the drawbacks
I thought the 8bitdo controller was not that great?
 

Kilau

Gold Member
I thought the 8bitdo controller was not that great?

I've been using one with the NES mini for a few days now and it works great. The ability to jump back to the menu to make save states is such a welcome feature.

Lag doesn't seem to be an issue either, working my way through punch out just like I remember it.
 

VARIA

Member
Anyone know if it can handle FDS games? Probably not, since there's no apparent way to switch disk sides, but I would've loved to have VS. Excitebike on it.
 

Impotaku

Member
Anyone know if it can handle FDS games? Probably not, since there's no apparent way to switch disk sides, but I would've loved to have VS. Excitebike on it.

Apart from the UI between the famicom & nes i'm guessing they are pretty much the same. The Japanese one plays FDS games as it has the disk system version of zelda & metroid on it, not sure if the roms were changed to avoid side swapping or the emulator automatically does it when it detects a disk system game.
 

Lagamorph

Member
Anyone tried that 72-in-1 or other multiple games cartridge?

images

I assume the cartridge has its own game selection UI when you start it up, so the NES Mini would just consider it a single game cartridge the same as any other. Don't see why it would work any differently to other titles.
 

Red

Member
From what I can tell, it depends on your HDTV. And it's not just input lag, but sound also lags as well. It's not horrible on my Sony, but it's noticeable. Maybe 1/4th of a second lag.

I got used to it after a minute or two.
1/4 second is immense lag. That is not trivial.

>50ms input lag is generally considered poor for gaming. 250ms input lag sounds dreadful. If sound is also offset, that sounds like a pretty horrible experience.

Or have we accepted bad input lag as a fact of life now?
 

louiedog

Member
A retropie device is just more work all around , finding emulators

This is literally the thing you don't have to do that makes retropie so easy. It takes away the part where you have to find and configure a bunch of emulators which was always the annoying part of making an emulation machine.
 
Awesome list and thank you.

Glancing at that list, basically every major heavy hitting title is going to be A-OK. EXCEPT what I consider the best NES title, "Gimmick!" aka Mr. Gimmick. Boo. Still impressive that it will handle basically everything else.

The good news: "Mr. Gimmick", the European PAL release of the game, has a weird mapper, but I believe that it's more or less compatible with MMC3 and thus should probably work. Timings in the game were not optimized for European NESes, so this will either run at the proper NTSC-designed speed, or will be recognized as a PAL game and will run at the same speed as the cartridge would on a European NES. I guess no one has really mentioned yet how this handles NTSC vs. PAL if all PAL region NES Classic Minis come officially loaded with the 60 FPS North American NTSC versions of the ROMs.

The bad news: the European version of Mr. Gimmick didn't have the extra audio chip, so the music is downgraded to stock NES audio, Castlevania III style. The bass audio samples ARE pitched for European hardware, but there is a patch floating around online for the European version's music to sound right on NTSC hardware.

Anyone know if it can handle FDS games? Probably not, since there's no apparent way to switch disk sides, but I would've loved to have VS. Excitebike on it.

I've heard that FDS files are compatible with the North American NES Mini. I am curious if the auto disk flipping on the Famicom Mini is baked into the ROMs or baked into the emulator, though.
 
Top Bottom