Hi-Def NES HDMI Adapter for the NES

[game-tech.us]

It using Tim's nesrgb kit, so 15khz rgb etc etc.

[MottZilla]

So then the question is can Tim's NESRGB kit would in parallel with Kevtris's HDMI kit? As tokumaru pointed out, having to buy two systems would be unpleasant.

[game-tech.us]

So then the question is can Tim's NESRGB kit would in parallel with Kevtris's HDMI kit? As tokumaru pointed out, having to buy two systems would be unpleasant.

That's the plan, but not yet tested. Kevin made it sound like the hdmi cord would have to be unplugged to let the nesrgb work, but I could be wrong about that too.

[MottZilla]

That's good to hear, but I'm hoping you or someone else can get us a concrete answer about how using the RGB and HDMI in the same system would work.

[kevtris]

That's good to hear, but I'm hoping you or someone else can get us a concrete answer about how using the RGB and HDMI in the same system would work.

Here's how it works:

Plugging in the HDMI cable sets the system to emit HDMI video. it changes the CPU/PPU over to use the FPGA-generated special clock signals. The analog video output(s) will produce video but it will not be good video. sprites will show up white and tiles show up as black. The video will also be slightly jittery (due to how the clock generation works).

Unplugging HDMI switches the PPU/CPU over to use the NES mobo generated clock, and makes the PPU work in "passthrough" mode, so that the PPU works like it always did, generating composite video. In this mode, the FPGA's audio hardware still works, and is switched over to using the NES mobo clock too. In this mode, overclocking, menus, and everything else DO NOT WORK (except the audio as specified). If you want to turn audio chips on/off you must do this through HDMI.

When you plug/unplug the HDMI cable, it resets the NES. This is because the CPU would crash anyways during clock switchover. (And it makes the logistics of things impossible otherwise)

How it should work with the nesRGB:

(Not tested... and the nesRGB needs some slight mods I will explain below)

There's a solderable jumper on the Hidef NES board that must be soldered. When this is done, the PPU passthrough mode is disabled, and it goes back to "lying" to the PPU again. However, the nesRGB uses a slightly different set of palette entries from the HidefNES does... so that jumper will make it whisper the sweet nothings to the PPU that the nesRGB needs to operate properly.

As before, in HDMI mode, the nesRGB won't work right and have lots of jitter in the video (and due to the different palette entries might not work at all).

The modifications needed to make the board compatible are as follows:

* The nesRGB board will sit on the NES mobo, and the HidefNES board will sit on top of the nesRGB.
* The bidirectional buffer between the CPLD and PPU on the nesRGB board has to be removed.
* The D0-D7 pins of the PPU must be connected to D0-D7 on the nesRGB socket (this gets the NES data bus to the HidefNES board).
* The code in the nesRGB must be modified, or an inverter added to make the nesRGB's NES data bus buffers incapable of driving the
NES bus.
* The EXT pins on the PPU must be passed through to the nesRGB board.
* The afore-mentioned solder jumper must be soldered on the HidefNES board.

This is all untested, but it should work. I might've screwed it up a bit too. I will give it a test eventually when everything else is done and I have some time to do it.


Another note:

The Everdrive is having a lot of problems with the HidefNES due to the clocking required to make it work. The early versions of the mapper (version 3) seem to mostly work, but anything later DOES NOT WORK. Unfortunately there is nothing I can do to fix this, and on examination of the "Example mapper code" for the Everdrive, the reason is the way it interfaces to the NES bus. It can be fixed, but it must be done on the Everdrive end. If someone wants to pay me for my time I can fix at least some of the mappers. The Powerpak works fine as does every release cartridge I have tested.

I checked out the Everdrive forum and it seems the Everdrive doesn't work on every system; there's a thread showing it failing on some Famicoms and it fails on the HidefNES in the exact same manner.

[Great Hierophant]

Another note:

The Everdrive is having a lot of problems with the HidefNES due to the clocking required to make it work. The early versions of the mapper (version 3) seem to mostly work, but anything later DOES NOT WORK. Unfortunately there is nothing I can do to fix this, and on examination of the "Example mapper code" for the Everdrive, the reason is the way it interfaces to the NES bus. It can be fixed, but it must be done on the Everdrive end. If someone wants to pay me for my time I can fix at least some of the mappers. The Powerpak works fine as does every release cartridge I have tested.

I checked out the Everdrive forum and it seems the Everdrive doesn't work on every system; there's a thread showing it failing on some Famicoms and it fails on the HidefNES in the exact same manner.

Is it this thread? : http://krikzz.com/forum/index.php?topic ... 98#msg9998 I have a Famicom on the way with an HVC-CPU-07 and rev. E chips, I hope my Everdrive will not fail in this machine.

[kevtris]

Another note:

The Everdrive is having a lot of problems with the HidefNES due to the clocking required to make it work. The early versions of the mapper (version 3) seem to mostly work, but anything later DOES NOT WORK. Unfortunately there is nothing I can do to fix this, and on examination of the "Example mapper code" for the Everdrive, the reason is the way it interfaces to the NES bus. It can be fixed, but it must be done on the Everdrive end. If someone wants to pay me for my time I can fix at least some of the mappers. The Powerpak works fine as does every release cartridge I have tested.

I checked out the Everdrive forum and it seems the Everdrive doesn't work on every system; there's a thread showing it failing on some Famicoms and it fails on the HidefNES in the exact same manner.

Is it this thread? : http://krikzz.com/forum/index.php?topic ... 98#msg9998 I have a Famicom on the way with an HVC-CPU-07 and rev. E chips, I hope my Everdrive will not fail in this machine.

Yep that's the thread. It CAN be fixed, but it must be fixed in the FPGA side of the Everdrive. Unfortunately there is nothing I can do on the hdmi end to fix it. The problem is the mappers are coded in a fairly IMO poor way with regards to how it uses M2 directly to clock things in, and any tiny amount of noise will cause false clocking; nothing is synchronized either. All the NES side signals should've been synchronized to the 50MHz oscillator on the Everdrive before being worked on. It would solve all of the compatibility issues.

I had quite a few problems getting reliable operation myself. It's fairly non-trivial to latch data off the NES bus without having it fail, due to the noise on M2 and the somewhat "variable" timing of where things occur relative to it. I had major problems with the DPCM not properly reading data off the bus because DPCM (and sprite) DMA's have different timing than the 6502 accesses. It was a huge headache. The various revisions of the CPU only made it worse. The blank rev CPUs have a much different timing than the E and up ones.

So at this point I have to say that the Everdrive is mostly incompatible with the Hidef NES unfortunately. Again, it can be fixed but it will take some HDL doing to get it going on the Everdrive end.

[mikejmoffitt]

That is unfortunate. Maybe, though, this can be a drive for him to update the firmware with some missing features added as well as fixing this issue. (Sunsoft 5B...)

[Great Hierophant]

I have a Famicom on the way with an HVC-CPU-07 and rev. E chips, I hope my Everdrive will not fail in this machine.

The Famicom I described above came and the Everdrive did not fail in it. My Everdrive works with rev. E CPU/PPU, a rev. G CPU/PPU and a rev. H CPU/PPU.

[mikejmoffitt]

Maybe this will be a good drive for many mappers to be updated, not only for the HDMI project's compatibility, but maybe also some other problems with various titles (and missing Sunsoft 5B support! What's the deal there?!)

[kevtris]

Ooooh yeah. PCBs have arrived!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFbGa7fdcVY

It won't be long now!

[Icelvlan]

Woot, super excited! Can't wait.

[getafixx]

Hey Kevin, when will you be taking orders on these? I don't want to miss out

[game-tech.us]

Ok the first 6 Hi-Def NES modded US top loaders are up for auction on ebay, just search nes hdmi.
They were a bit late as I had a hell of a time uploading them because ebay wouldn't let me upload them and they weren't specific enough about why so I had to try several times. Turns out you can use the word 'mod' in the title, but if you say kit they think it has bundled accessories and if you are listing in the consoles category and don't have the bundled accs option listed then it won't upload. I was doing this from misterlister or whatever that shitty prog is named now. Then they marked them as duplicates even though I used different pics for top and bottom shots on each auction and some different txt in description. I had to add the 3 numbers of the serial number to the title to get them to release all the auctions as not dupes, FK!!!

[yxkalle]

Maybe something like this, repeating?

Code: Select all

TV line             Line Darken %       NES line
0                        60             0
1                        0              0
2                        10             0
3                        90             0
4                        40             1
5                        10             1
6                        0              1
7                        30             1
8                        90             1

I'm not at a machine with appropriate tools right now so I can't test it, but a pattern like that which lines up might look okay.

I came up with this myself, aften experimenting a bit with GIMP.

Code: Select all

Scanlines as wide as gaps (darkens the picture quite a bit)

TV line             Line Darken %       NES line
0                        70             0
1                        22             0
2                        9              0
3                        58             0
4                        94             1
5                        47             1
6                        0              1
7                        35             1
8                        83             1

Thinner gaps between scanlines (I like this better, because it's symmetrical):

TV line             Line Darken %       NES line
0                        50             0
1                        0              0
2                        0              0
3                        50             0
4                        83             1
5                        17             1
6                        0              1
7                        17             1
8                        83             1

Example 1 (click picture to see full resolution):

Mario1_640.png

Example 2 (my favourite):

Mario2_640.png