RetroUSB AVS NES Clone First Impressions

I just received my new AVS FPGA NES clone system from RetroUSB's Bunnyboy. This system differs from NES-on-a-chip hardware clones and RetroN5-style software emulation systems in that it is an FPGA-based hardware emulator. This gives it many of the advantages of a hardware clone (e.g., low latency, direct interaction with carts instead of dumping) with some of the benefits of a software emulator (e.g., firmware updates to add new features, etc.).

I won't rehash the info that's widely available elsewhere and will instead focus on things I haven't seen anyone talking about. But, just to get it out of the way, the graphics are perfect and the sound is just as crisp.

After facing a lot of compatibility issues with my original-run Analogue Nt and my Everdrive N8, the first thing I did was fire up my AVS+N8 to try some of the problematic games, namely Super Mario Bros. 2 USA and Ninja Gaiden 3. Both played just fine and I encountered no unexpected behavior.

Since the AVS doesn't do any expansion audio of its own--it just uses an analog-to-digital converter to pipe the audio from the cart or expansion device into the AVS A/V stream--it sounds as good or as bad as the original audio source. The N8's community mappers for Akumajou Densetsu and Gimmick! sound great, while the FDS expansion audio sounds...not so great.

There is also a screechy, sibilant thing accompanying certain sounds, but I suspect this will go away when I run the day 1 update. Speaking of which, it was harder than I expected to find the stuff needed to actually run the update. I didn't see any way to get them from directly RetroUSB.com's AVS page, which is where I would expect to find this sort of thing, but this post from NintendoAge has direct links:
http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=106&threadid=166537
and you can sort through all of RetroUSB's downloads here:
http://retrousb.com/downloads/

To actually update the system, you have to connect the AVS to a computer and run the scoreboard application, which also includes a firmware uploading utility. Unfortunately, the scoreboard application is only available for Windows and Mac, which is a real drag for me, since I don't have either of those handy. Oh well.

Retro Receiver First Impressions

Despite the controversy, I've been very happy with my Analogue Nt and when Analogue announced that they had partnered with 8bitdo to produce the Retro Receiver, I put in an order with Play-Asia on day 1. It took a couple of weeks to arrive and I just received it yesterday, so here are my first impressions:

First off, it works as advertised! The receiver is powered by the NES' controller port, so no batteries or charging are necessary, and I was able to pair an 8bitdo Zero with it just fine (using the basic gamepad pairing mode, which you access by holding the 'start' button). I also tested pairing a Wii remote, which was a smooth, painless process, as well.

Controls are responsive, with no appreciable latency, as far as I could tell (I didn't do any scientific measurements, just operating on subjective "feel"). The automapped turbo buttons work great and are very handy.

The only complaint I had is that, on 8bitdo's pads, the NES' B and A buttons are physically swapped to match the lettering scheme used by 8bitdo (that its, Xbox 360-style, with A on the bottom and B on the right vs. SNES-style, with B on the bottom and A on the right). Correction: this is only an issue on the Zero; the other pads are fine. This is a real drag for games where you have already developed muscle memory and is terrible for Mike Tyson's Punch Out!! because it makes the left-side button do a right-arm punch and vice versa.

However, the Wii remote doesn't have this issue and the B and A buttons are mapped to the 1 and 2 buttons, respectively, as you would expect. Start and Select are mapped to minus and plus, respectively, which seemed backward to me, but that's not as big of a deal as the face buttons and is more easily ignored/adapted-to. With only two face buttons, you lose the turbo buttons, sadly. I had hoped to get around this with the Wii remote's Classic Controller attachment but it doesn't seem to work with the receiver. Update (9/22/16): it should with the latest firmware, I think. I think the Wii U Pro controller is supposed to work with it but I don't have one, so I couldn't test.

The receiver should also work with PS3 pads, but I haven't had a chance to test this yet. I'll update the post when I get around to that. Update (5/15/16): I got a chance to try it but didn't have any luck actually pairing up a DS3 with the receiver. I tried just pairing with the PS3 button, as well as plugging the controller into the receiver's micro-USB port via a USB OTG cable, neither of which worked. If anyone knows the trick, please drop me a comment! Update (9/22/16): ok, no wonder it didn't work: the pairing process is pretty involved. You have to download the pairing utility from here, plug the receiver and your DS3 into your PC or Mac (no Linux client, and it doesn't work via WINE; Note: if you're running Windows 8 or 10, you also need to either disable driver signing temporarily or install the dual shock pairing utility, which is helpfully included with the tools download), run the utility and then use it to pair the pad with the receiver. Whew!

For now, I think the sideways Wii remote provides the best experience (despite the lack of turbo buttons)--or the Wii U Pro controller if its buttons are mapped properly--unless/until 8bitdo provides a way to swap the button mapping on the other pads Zero.

All in all, I think it's a great little accessory that fills an important niche created by Kevtris' HiDefNES HDMI adapter and bunnyboy's upcoming AVS FPGA NES (scheduled for release in late June). Now that we can actually play our carts on our gigantic flat-panel TVs, this receiver lets us sit back on our couches to relax and enjoy it. Update (9/22/16): I got my AVS and the receiver works great with it!

I would also like to echo the comments I've read elsewhere asking for an SNES version. Since NES and SNES use the same controller protocol, this should be a matter of just wrapping the same guts in a different plastic shell. Fingers crossed! Update (9/22/16): My wish came true and they did release an SNES version. The initial firmware that comes with the receiver uses some pretty strange mapping for DS3 pads, so be sure to update it to the latest, which should give a more sane layout. The updated firmware also adds support for Wii Classic Controllers, which is awesome! Strangely, plugging the SNES receiver into an SNES-to-NES adapter *does not work* and jumbles up your inputs. I was hoping to use a single DS3 to control both systems, but no such luck. :(

SNES to NES Controller Adapter

Historically, the SNES was originally intended to be backward compatible with the NES, with a CPU from the same 6502 lineage as the NES and a similar controller signal protocol over the same 5 wires: data clock, data latch, serial data, +5v and ground. The SNES signal has more data clock pulses after the data latch pulse but the protocols are the same, otherwise. This means that if you make a pin-to-pin adapter that sends SNES controller signals to an NES port, everything works just fine and the NES will just ignore the extraneous clock pulses.

Now, original NES controllers are getting fairly expensive these days--particularly the "dog bone" controllers that are round instead of pointy--and the third party reproductions from Tomee et al. are pretty universally reviled for being flimsy, unresponsive and altogether crummy. SNES controllers, on the other hand, are more ergonomic, originals are generally more plentiful and some of the repros (like this one) are actually pretty great. I also already have a bunch of SNES controllers, including an ASCII Pad, which is possibly the finest third party controller ever produced...

So, with all of that in mind, I cobbled together an SNES to NES controller adapter (there are a number of guides online, see also: here and here, among others) using a couple of cheap extension cables, specifically Tomee NES extensions (I found a set of 2 from an eBay seller for $9) and "Gen" 2-pack SNES extensions. I'll post which wires I connected, but it seems the factories that produce these extension cables just pick a handful of randomly colored wires when they put them together, so don't assume they'll apply to your own cables in any logical way:

NES side   |   SNES side 

  Yellow  <->  Black 

  Orange  <->  Green 

   Black  <->  Red 

    Blue  <->  Yellow 

   Green  <->  White

Ideally, you would figure out which wire carries which signal using a multimeter but mine is on the fritz, so I just trial-and-errored my way through it, which was a pain in the ass, but whatever. It worked in the end. Interestingly and unexpectedly, NES' B-button becomes the SNES' Y-button, and NES A becomes SNES B, which is really fantastic, since the angle of the SNES B and A buttons would make them hard to press at the same time had the naming/mapping been consistent.

Analogue Nt HDMI - First Look

I finally got my Analogue Nt with HDMI upgrade in the mail today and while the base Nt has already gotten plenty of coverage, the HDMI-upgraded model hasn't been covered at all (AFAIK) at the time of this writing.

I got the default silver model with the "limited edition" white and gold controller ports:

As covered elsewhere, the construction is incredibly high quality (the power/reset button being a button from an NES controller is a particularly interesting touch, I thought):

There has been much ado about the aluminum cart slots scratching up cart shells, which hasn't been a problem for me, but I suppose if you're really worried about it, you could open the flaps with a finger while inserting the cart. /shrug

Below the HDMI port is a standard 15-pin d-sub connector, which I've seen called a "VGA port" elsewhere, though this is not the case. That is to say: you can't hook it up to a VGA-compatible display and get any video out of it. For that matter, it's apparently not RGBHV-over-d-sub, either, as it didn't produce any picture when hooked up to my multisync XM29+'s d-sub port, even though that monitor will accept "240p" non-interlaced video over that connection. I'll have to catch up with the guys at Analogue and ask about the pinout of the port. Hopefully, it's something that won't require too much effort to get going on my own. I'm planning to hack together a SCART cable and a working RGBHV-over-d-sub cable (if possible). EDIT: I just talked to the Analogue guys and it seems the HDMI and RGB/component functionalities are mutually exclusive. It seems they will swap between the two at no charge, though:

"When you upgrade your Analogue Nt to HDMI it outputs HDMI only, there are two different systems that are not compatible with each other. Though, whats cool is you can switch between RGB and HDMI if you wanted either version (we'd install either daughterboard for you for free). Also, any other cool mods that the NES community may make in the future would be compatible with the Nt too - which is super cool!"

That in mind, I may decide to switch to RGB at some point in the future, as much of my equipment is tooled for RGB/SCART/JP21, but for now HDMI is convenient.

I won't rehash any more of the information that's readily available elsewhere, so instead I'll spend most of this post talking about the HDMI upgrade. While originally advertised as an external upscaler, they eventually nixed that idea (and rightfully so, since it's not likely they'd be able to get anything worthwhile for the ~$60 cost of the upgrade) and opted instead for kevtris' brand new HDMI board, which AFAIK isn't available anywhere else just yet.

I'm still doing testing to get a feel for what the HDMI board is capable of, but out of the gate: it's pretty incredible. The image is exactly what you would expect from an emulator, warts and all. That is, the upscaled pixels are as sharp as you can get; much sharper than the output of an XRGB-Mini Framemeister (which I also have, so I can give them the Pepsi Challenge):

The colors in those shots are washed out, but that's the fault of my camera trying to adjust to the brightness of my TV's backlight. The colors are actually bright and vibrant, and the HDMI connection has none of the "shimmering" on large swaths of color that have been reported elsewhere with RGB connections.

Getting into the HDMI onscreen menu is pretty cool/crazy in that it's a button combination on the gamepad (specifically, dpad-down+select by default). Once there, it's got a ton of cool options for tweaking the video, including overscan cropping, horizontal scaling, scanline settings, scaling filters and resolution selection driven by your display's EDID:

At 1080p, the scanlines are uneven thickness (alternating thinner and thicker), just like you would get on an emulator at 4.5x scale:

1080p's uneven scanlines

I would have liked to see an option to force integer scaling to avoid this issue, but I didn't see anything like that (I'll update this post if I find otherwise; such a thing may also be added in a future firmware update UPDATE: 9/26/2015 looks like kevtris is on it). At 720p, the scanlines are even thickness, since it's an even 3x integer scale already, but the pixels aren't as sharp due to my TV doing the rest of the scaling:

720p's even scanlines

Scanline settings. NES is locked to the resolution, while the others are pre-set scale factors (i.e., they don't always line up with the pixels, which I can't stand). There's also an intensity slider that controls how dark the lines are.

Likewise, at 1080p, the vertical size of pixels isn't consistent, just as you would expect from nearest neighbor scaling at a non-integer scale factor. This is also the case with the horizontal scaling, but there is an option screen specifically for tweaking it, from 3x (for 1:1 PAR at 720p) up to stretched 16:9 (barf). The default setting is 4:3 on 16:9 displays, which has faintly warped pixels but is the natural aspect ratio for NTSC:

1:1 PAR (i.e., square pixels) using 3x horizontal scale at 720p; notice the even checkerboard pattern in the road.

4:3 aspect ratio; notice the uneven pattern on the road.

There's also a preset for 4:3 on 16:10 displays, which is handy if you're hooking up to a monitor instead of a TV, as well as an option labeled "interpolation," but I can't really see any difference between it being enabled/disabled.

There are also scaling filters, including the ever-popular hq2x/hq3x/hq4x (no filtering vs hq4x):

No scaling filter

HQ4x scaling filter

The HDMI board also includes a lot of audio settings, with individual enable/disable toggles and volume/panning for main audio and each specific add-on audio chip for FDS audio and any in-cart audio add-ons, like the ones in Gimmick and Akumajou Densetsu:

Independent volume control for each audio device

There are a ton of other options I haven't gotten to play with yet, including hotkeys for over/under-clocking (presumably to get around some incompatibility with the Everdrive N8, which I haven't gotten to test yet), soft-reset and more.

UPDATE (8/30/2015): Looking into the Everdrive issue, it seems the N8 is indeed incompatible with kevtris' HDMI board with N8 firmware >= 4.0, while the 3.0 firmware may be okay. The Analogue folks uploaded a copy of the older firmware to their Dropbox account. Testing is easy, just copy and paste the files onto your SD card and replace the newer versions. Leave me a comment if you get to try it. I hope to borrow a friend's N8 soon, so hopefully I can provide some input/testing.

Update (9/25/2015): KRIKzz got his hands on an HDMI board and has been investigating the issue. Hopefully, a fix will be forthcoming. Update (9/28/2015): Oh sweet: looks like he's got it working! Anyone with the HDMI board should upgrade their N8s to firmware v13. Update (10/3/2015): d'oh, not working for me :(. I get a garbled mess if I boot my new N8 with no SD card and a green screen with firmware v13.

In addition to the N8 issues, Kevtris' HDMI board has been having issues with some games and mappers, the most popular of which is Castlevania 3. Apparently, holding reset while powering on the console alleviates some of the issues but this isn't an option on the Nt. Kevtris is working on it, though, and it should be addressed in the upcoming update. Update (10/30/2015): Kevtris' update is out and it apparently fixes the Everdrive green screen, FDS and MMC5. Anyone still having the Everdrive green screen issue can still apply the update from their Everdrive by powering on with the HDMI cable unplugged, wait a few seconds for everything to initialize and then plug the HDMI cable back in.

I plan to update this post as I learn more but I wanted to get this info out there, both for people waiting on their Nts and for those eager to learn more about kevtris' awesome HDMI board (for reference, it seems my board's serial number is 30, so I would assume it's one of the first to make it into an end-user's hands).

Anyway, here are a couple more glamour-shots:

Added NEStopia to my Ubuntu PPA

I added packages for the latest Linux port of the awesome NES emulator NEStopia to my PPA. The only problem is that I don't know how to make a package create a ~/.[appname] config directory and/or put required config files into that directory at first run. If anyone knows how to do that, I'd appreciate the info. EDIT: Ok, I fixed it. I created a quick-and-dirty bash launcher script that will check for the required directory and file and create them if needed.

NO LONGER NECESSARY:

Unless/until I find out how to do that, anyone wanting to use my package will have to manually create the config directory and at least create a husk of an inputs file by opening a terminal and typing:

mkdir .nestopia ; touch .nestopia/nstcontrols

From that point on, everything should work fine. If you are super-scared of hitting the terminal and would feel better with a script, you can download and run this script and it will take care of it for you.

Let me know if you run into any issues or have any questions.