Ways to play Famicom games on an NES

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tepples
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Re: Ways to play Famicom games on an NES

Post by tepples »

I remember reading somewhere that even NES boards made for the MMC5 have footprints for mixing resistors. If those are populated, what NES-side resistor is appropriate?
Great Hierophant
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Re: Ways to play Famicom games on an NES

Post by Great Hierophant »

Pokun wrote:As I said earlier, the seller said that the adapter pretty much requires a blinking light win and it also has problems if RF is used.
Memblers wrote:
infiniteneslives wrote: Yes but the ENIO also provides support for external audio. No I'm not going to be making my own ENIO, I have no interest in doing so. You don't need to adjust the volume, but some people enjoy the feature. It has been reported that some people have buzzing issues with their console when the audio resistor is in place. So having the ability to switch it on/off or adjust the volume to near off may necessitate the feature.
I hope that allowing volume adjustment for expansion audio doesn't become the standard. As a composer, that's potentially bad because it means that when using the NES and exp audio together, it's going to sound different on different systems. The various Famicom revisions output at varying levels, so I'm guessing that's why people want to adjust it. I don't know if the NES will be 100% consistent or not. But I think it's worth noting that taking on this feature means the NES would inherit one of the problems of Famicom expansion audio..

Also, was said already, but I can confirm that the audio output of the Famicom Everdrive is nearly inaudible and basically useless on the Famicom I have, so hopefully nobody is using that as gauge of anything.
The differences isn't that big between Famicoms. I think it's mainly the AV Famicom that has low volume, and since it were released after the majority of the expansion audio games was made, games where probably made with the older Famicoms in mind. If I understand it correctly the potentiometer is not for simulating different Famicom systems, but for simulating different audio expansion cartridges since they may differ, and since the mixing has to be done in the console instead of in the cartridge in the NES' case.

Yeah the Everdrive is pretty much useless for anything that uses expansion audio. The games that are "supported" are effectively unplayable on the Everdrive unless you play without sound.
You would be surprised at the differences between Famicoms. It isn't just the AV Famicoms that have lower internal volume levels. I ripped the audio from a Japanese video which compared many revisions playing the opening to The Legend of Zelda. They show that the GPM Famicom PCBs and the AV Famicom PCBs suffer from lower volume levels. The HVC PCBs are consistently louder with their internal volume amplification :

http://www.mediafire.com/file/2r5j3nzyo ... ference.7z

I disagree that the EverDrive is useless for expansion audio, unless you have a pre-HVC Famicom or a Twin. Don't get me started on the overdone low-pass filtering on the Twin Famicoms...

The Famicom Converter is an interesting idea, but it should not be dependent on having a BLW and I know there used to be a converter and there were plug through carts that required you to push down. Moreover, what is the issue with RF? Too much interference? Perhaps a few decoupling capacitors on the lines would help. RF still has its uses, not all TVs supported composite inputs and some people want to have a pure nostalgic experience with RF. It's useful to be able to record to composite and play on RF without any additional hardware.
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Re: Ways to play Famicom games on an NES

Post by Pokun »

I've also seen that video and I couldn't tell the volume difference apart that easily. Your recordings has clear differences in amplitude but I think I need to play the game to be able to compare properly. The Twin does have clearly more muffled sound in the recordings though.
I've seen mostly HVC-CPU-07, HVC-CPU-GPM-XX and Twin Famicoms and don't remember any noticeable differences when playing games. It was a long time ago I played on a GPM though.

What's a pre-HVC and what do you mean the Everdrive isn't useless for expansion audio? Most people have either an HVC 07, GPM, Twin, AV Famicom, NES or some random Famiclone. I have an HVC 07 and the expansion sound in Akumajou Densetsu is almost inaudible and easily drowned by the APU channels. The Sunsoft-5B mapper has similar problems, and the FDS waveforms are not applied properly at all and sounds like simple squares and stuff. And for FDS games, since the Everdrive also decides when it's time to flip a disk on its own, only single-sided disk games that are not using expansion audio are effectively playable on the Everdrive. The Everdrive is great for the majority of normal cartridge games that doesn't use expansion audio, but not much else.


Yeah I also don't like that the Muramasa adapter can't do RF and requires Blinking Light Win.
These are the words of the seller:
"Since the converters sticks out the front and can't be seated down a blinking light win or perfect pins are needed. It also doesn't look good being used with RF as the output, but looks amazing with even just composite."
The link is in my first post of this thread. Necroposting is allowed and encouraged at Famicom World forum so don't be afraid to post in that thread and ask the seller directly.
An ideal adapter would be something like Infinitneslives was talking about, one that can take the RAM Adapter and still be pushed down.
Last edited by Pokun on Wed Dec 13, 2017 3:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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DRW
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Re: Ways to play Famicom games on an NES

Post by DRW »

Pokun wrote:Yeah I also don't like that the Muramasa adapter can't do RF and requires Blinking Light Win.
These are the words of the seller:
"Since the converters sticks out the front and can't be seated down a blinking light win or perfect pins are needed. It also doesn't look good being used with RF as the output, but looks amazing with even just composite."
What kind of statement is that again? In how far does the output quality have anything to do with the converter?
Is he implying that using the converter looks better than using a regular cartridge? Then I'm asking myself how this should work.
Or is he simply saying that it looks just like with real cartridges. Then why should this even be mentioned? "Hey, using my converter that routes pins to a slot does not diminish the image signal that the NES sends to the TV." Erm, yes, this should be the default situation anyway, not something that is advertised as an actual feature.
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Re: Ways to play Famicom games on an NES

Post by Pokun »

It's a sales pitch, turning something bad into sounding like something good is standard PR. There's no way the adapter would improve the original picture, especially not as it seems to have problems with the signals having to travel so far already.
Great Hierophant
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Re: Ways to play Famicom games on an NES

Post by Great Hierophant »

Pokun wrote:I've also seen that video and I couldn't tell the volume difference apart that easily. Your recordings has clear differences in amplitude but I think I need to play the game to be able to compare properly. The Twin does have clearly more muffled sound in the recordings though.
I've seen mostly HVC-CPU-07, HVC-CPU-GPM-XX and Twin Famicoms and don't remember any noticeable differences when playing games. It was a long time ago I played on a GPM though.

What's a pre-HVC and what do you mean the Everdrive isn't useless for expansion audio unless?
I mistyped, I meant to say pre-GPM. On the GPMs and the AV Famicoms, the EverDrive's volume levels are tolerable in my opinion.

I would suggest that the extra length of the traces that the adapter adds may be the issue that causes additional RF interference. Those wires act like antennae and RF modulators are more susceptible to interference that composite output. If someone made an FDS RAM NES cartridge, that would unlikely be an issue.
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Re: Ways to play Famicom games on an NES

Post by Pokun »

I see, too bad most Famicoms are pre-GPM. Earlier there was an option in the Everdrive menu to change expansion volume between high and low, but it seems to have been removed in an update and I don't remember it ever worked as it was supposed to anyway.
Great Hierophant
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Re: Ways to play Famicom games on an NES

Post by Great Hierophant »

Pokun wrote:I see, too bad most Famicoms are pre-GPM. Earlier there was an option in the Everdrive menu to change expansion volume between high and low, but it seems to have been removed in an update and I don't remember it ever worked as it was supposed to anyway.
The current and recent EverDrive firmwares now use just the High setting, but it is still too Low for the HVC-CPU Famicoms.

Any flash cart that supports generating audio should have an amplifier. The Mega EverDrive X7 now supports YM2143 audio and the sd2snes supports MSU-1 audio, but people have complained that the audio levels were too low. The sd2snes added an amplifier to fix these issues.
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Re: Ways to play Famicom games on an NES

Post by Pokun »

IIRC the high and low settings never worked like they should anyway. Either setting broke some games while fixing others (well for a bit).

I've played several MSU-1 hacks on my SD2SNES (bought long before the amplifier was added) and I never thought the sound was too low. I heard that the initial SD2SNES wasn't up to the MSU-1 standard spec though.
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Re: Ways to play Famicom games on an NES

Post by GreyRogue »

DRW wrote: I mean, on the inside, it's a Honeybee converter. Does any Honeybee converter have a lockout chip or any other defeat mechanism?
I took some pictures of this several weeks ago and never got around to replying to this like I meant to. In case you're still curious:
HoneyBee Front.png
HoneyBee Back.png
IMG_20171208_1856209_rewind.jpg
IMG_20171208_1856408_rewind.jpg
So, yes, it does have a defeat mechanism. It looks like it also has all the traces in place for an official lockout chip (or pin equivalent), which would be preferable, but I've been loathe to cannibalize a cart to do so. I believe it has all the signals pass thru except for audio, so this one could be modded pretty easily to be ideal. However, I'll probably wait to see what the INL one looks like before modding this one.
As an aside, does anyone know if it matters that the audio pin going from the Famicom to the cart is left floating? Should this be terminated in some way or does it matter? I'm unfamiliar with how the carts mix in this audio, or how an audio modded NES would would mix it in for the famicom carts that just pass it through. Do either of these cases amplify the floating noise signal somehow, where terminating the input would improve it? As I said, I haven't looked at the circuits at all.
Last edited by GreyRogue on Sun Jan 07, 2018 11:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Ways to play Famicom games on an NES

Post by GreyRogue »

Oh, and here's how it attaches the ribbon, if anyone cares (the piece of tape that covered it has lost its adhesiveness and fell off):
IMG_20171208_1857341_rewind.jpg
IMG_20171208_1857571_rewind.jpg
lidnariq
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Re: Ways to play Famicom games on an NES

Post by lidnariq »

GreyRogue wrote:As an aside, does anyone know if it matters that the audio pin going from the Famicom to the cart is left floating? Should this be terminated in some way or does it matter?
No, it does not matter, no, it does not need to be terminated.
I'm unfamiliar with how the carts mix in this audio
In the Famicom, audio from the 2A03 goes through an amplifier, via the cartridge, and back out directly to the RF modulator.

In the NES, the audio path is accessible in two places on the EXP port: pin 3 is an input to let you provide a signal that will be mixed in. Pin 22 is the output of the amplifier, before it goes into the RF modulator.
how an audio modded NES would would mix it in for the famicom carts that just pass it through.
The Famicom-to-NES adapter often connects the famicom cart edge AUDIO TO MODULATOR pin to a random one of the NES EXP pins. Usually people just put a resistor between that random EXP pins on the NES cart connector and NES expansion port pin 3.
Do either of these cases amplify the floating noise signal somehow, where terminating the input would improve it? As I said, I haven't looked at the circuits at all.
No. If you're hearing noise, it's almost certainly coupling with the PPU, not anything else.
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DRW
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Re: Ways to play Famicom games on an NES

Post by DRW »

GreyRogue wrote:So, yes, it does have a defeat mechanism.
Thanks.
The question now is: How exactly does this mechanism work? Is it one of those mechanisms that try to stun the lockout chip to disable it?
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Re: Ways to play Famicom games on an NES

Post by GreyRogue »

DRW wrote:
GreyRogue wrote:So, yes, it does have a defeat mechanism.
Thanks.
The question now is: How exactly does this mechanism work? Is it one of those mechanisms that try to stun the lockout chip to disable it?
Yes it tries to stun it. That's what the resistors, capacitors and transistor are for. It's worse than some carts that use stunning, as those usually can be turned off after the booting, this one I believe will always activate based on PPU A10. If the resistors, capacitors and transistor are removed, however, it already has an unpopulated footprint for a CIC with traces already in place. Just soldering in the chip should work.
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DRW
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Re: Ways to play Famicom games on an NES

Post by DRW »

GreyRogue wrote:Yes it tries to stun it. That's what the resistors, capacitors and transistor are for.
I would never put anything like this into my original perfectly-conditioned NES.
My game "City Trouble":
Gameplay video: https://youtu.be/Eee0yurkIW4
Download (ROM, manual, artworks): http://www.denny-r-walter.de/city.html
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