Hi-Def NES HDMI Adapter for the NES

[tokumaru]

It doesn't get any more legit than Retrogate. Krikzz runs it, and ships the Everdrives straight from Ukraine. It will probably take longer than if it was shipped from within the US, but it's perfectly safe.

[kevtris]

It doesn't get any more legit than Retrogate. Krikzz runs it, and ships the Everdrives straight from Ukraine. It will probably take longer than if it was shipped from within the US, but it's perfectly safe.

Gotcha. I just bought one so I guess I'll have it in a few weeks. Though I will probably release the update before then.

Speaking of that, I identified and fixed the scanline saving problem. Turns out my "Sanity check" code that makes sure the settings are all valid was screwy and only allowed 0 or 1 in there instead of the entire range so that was a simple fix.

I am going to investigate adding a 4x and/or 5x for 1080p mode but I am not sure if I got room to do it.

[getafixx]

Well I tried the update that Krikzz released for the EDN8 and it works flawlessly now on the HDMI-NES. No problems now!

@Kevtris:

Why do the scanlines look sort of odd? When I select the NES style, it seems like one line is "fatter" than the other. So it goes something like normal line, blank, fatter line, blank. I've been playing in 1080p, is this a known issue?

[Great Hierophant]

If 4x gives 960 lines, then 5x gives 1200 lines, assuming that you are scaling the 240 NTSC PPU generated lines.

A monitor that has a screen resolution of 1920x1080 is going to have 120 lines cut off with the 5x function. You will lose 11.1% of the screen image on the vertical. Having taken a cursory look at NES games cropped using a near ratio (28 lines out of 240), that amount of cropping will not obscure important graphical information in most games. Of course, if you HDTV does overscan, the cropping and stretching may be too severe. Alternatively, if you have a 1920x1200 monitor (like I do), then you should completely fill the screen vertically.

I got my ED N8 and ED 64 straight from retrogate and have had no reliability issues with it whatsoever. Ditto for my Mega ED and ED GB from stoneagegamer. I swear that half of the forum posts requesting assistance on krikzz's forum came from those who went the cheap option and soon find that they will have to pay again if they want a quality product.

[yxkalle]

HiDefNES doesn't do 1200p though.

[getafixx]

If 4x gives 960 lines, then 5x gives 1200 lines, assuming that you are scaling the 240 NTSC PPU generated lines.

A monitor that has a screen resolution of 1920x1080 is going to have 120 lines cut off with the 5x function. You will lose 11.1% of the screen image on the vertical. Having taken a cursory look at NES games cropped using a near ratio (28 lines out of 240), that amount of cropping will not obscure important graphical information in most games. Of course, if you HDTV does overscan, the cropping and stretching may be too severe. Alternatively, if you have a 1920x1200 monitor (like I do), then you should completely fill the screen vertically.

I got my ED N8 and ED 64 straight from retrogate and have had no reliability issues with it whatsoever. Ditto for my Mega ED and ED GB from stoneagegamer. I swear that half of the forum posts requesting assistance on krikzz's forum came from those who went the cheap option and soon find that they will have to pay again if they want a quality product.

I'm not talking about cropping. The pictures shows up perfectly fine, in the correct aspect ratio.

What I'm saying is that the scanline effect that this adapter has seems to be off by a bit, at least in 1080p mode (again, haven't tried in 720p yet). The scanlines are not an even thickness throughout, so it makes them look bad.

[kevtris]

OK the update's almost ready. I have done all I can do. I will do some testing and then probably release the .nes file in a few days.

The changes are as follows:

Code: Select all

;Version 2.0 updates:
;
;* Fixed up timing so that FDS, MMC5, and Everdrive should be fixed.
;
;* Fixed scanline modes not being saved.
;
;* Changed cadence of LED in composite mode
;
;* Changed behaviour of HDMI and composite modes so turning off monitor doesn't reset game.
;
;* Suppress rolling image on start, and do not reset PPU on reset to prevent the rolling.
;
;* Fixed MMC5 digi relative volume 
;
;* Changed FDS default volume to 48 from 80
;
;* Audio channels were being saved.  Changed to always reset on power up.
;
;* Cleaned up code 
;
;* Added 4x mode for NTSC 1080p
;
;

I could not add 5x mode to 1080p because there's not enough scanline buffer to do so. I would've needed another 15-20 lines and I just don't have it. I did add 4x mode though. It's toggled in the renamed save and options menu (since I ran out of menu entries everywhere else). That was the originally save and update.

I do not think I can add anything else now. The FPGA's sitting at 99% full with around 50LE's left out of 10000, and the menu code's full up too with maybe 15-20 bytes free in there as well. So don't ask for anything else since it isn't happening

Going to make a video tonight/tomorrow about the new stuff for the official release including how the update is applied, etc.

[kevtris]

Small update: That zelda hack is doing the identical corrupted thing on my totally stock front loader without the adapter installed, so the adapter is doing the same thing. That makes me feel better. I am going to make a cart of it for testing to see if it does it there as well.

[geddon_jt]

Kevtris, just wanted to say thanks again, your product is awesome and it's great to see you take the additional time to make it the best it can be.

[kevtris]

Weeeelllll, here it is. I received the everdrive yesterday and loaded V12? firmware onto it (the version before the "fix" for the HDMI adapter). Thinking this was going to be a "worst case" test. It worked perfectly with the games I tested- I tested about 6 or 7 different mappers and all is well. Reset even worked properly. Before, the error messages wouldn't show up properly but they do now (i.e. no SD card).

FDS is working properly now, and so do MMC5 games (i.e. reset works there too, and no need to use a game genie). I sent it out to a couple people and they could apply it properly, though one person has problems.

He was using a powerpak, and his MMC3 file was different than mine- I think he has the savestate mappers. This caused the update to not work. It reported a data corrupt error and refused to flash the firmware. I gave him my mapper 4 file direct off the CF card on my powerpak and then he got it to work properly.

I don't know anything about the save state mapper, but I assume it cannot load 512K PRG ROMs, because it uses some of the RAM for the savestate part? I could be totally wrong but that's just my first guess.

It works on some everdrives, but some people had issues.

Anyways, here is the update:

http://blog.kevtris.org/blogfiles/HiDef ... 0V2.00.nes

To use it, load this ROM on a flash cart (or burn EPROMs? hehe), run it and then get into the Hi Def menu, select "save and update", then "update firmware", and follow the on screen prompts. It will check the update for integrity, and then flash it if it passes the check. Cycle power and it will use the new firmware.

[thefox]

I don't know anything about the save state mapper, but I assume it cannot load 512K PRG ROMs, because it uses some of the RAM for the savestate part? I could be totally wrong but that's just my first guess.

512KB PRG ROMs should work (IIRC I've tested Mega Man 6). Might be some sort of an address space conflict in the $4xxx-5xxx area, since both the old and new save state mappers have some registers there (I may have left some of them enabled to conserve FPGA resources, it's been too long to remember). So, who knows.

[kevtris]

I don't know anything about the save state mapper, but I assume it cannot load 512K PRG ROMs, because it uses some of the RAM for the savestate part? I could be totally wrong but that's just my first guess.

512KB PRG ROMs should work (IIRC I've tested Mega Man 6). Might be some sort of an address space conflict in the $4xxx-5xxx area, since both the old and new save state mappers have some registers there (I may have left some of them enabled to conserve FPGA resources, it's been too long to remember). So, who knows.

Looks like it's an address space conflict. That's where the regs are mapped for updating.

[caitsith2]

Just poked into the copynes lite bios, contained within the update, and see that none of the code space optimizations made it in. It seems to be the original bios. At least my code changes that made vram/wram testing non-destructive made it in.

[Noah98]

Anyone still getting visual glitches with Blaster Master? (the actual cart, not from a flash cart.). Even with the update, I still get garbage characters like 0's on the title screen.

[Hustle Kong]

Thank you very much for the firmware update.

I updated it pretty recently, and for the life of me, changing between 4.0 and 4.5 on the height doesn’t seem to produce any difference... On both settings, “NES” scanlines produces three on, one off.

I did cycle the power. Is there something I am doing wrong? I’m playing on an Analogue NT.

Thank you!