Hi-Def NES HDMI Adapter for the NES

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teknix1
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Re: Hi-Def NES HDMI Adapter for the NES

Post by teknix1 »

Hi Kevin,

Thank you so much for making the Hi-Def NES, definitely the best thing since sliced bread!

One thing I find could help improve the image quality a bit, would be to fix the missing pixel at the top of alternating frames. It eventually fixes itself a few lines down and that's usually covered by overscan but on HD TVs you can and want to see the full screen. The result is a wavy dozens of lines at the top... See attached screenshot.

I have scanned through this topic and couldn't find anything about it, there's so much info in here. Has this been reported already? My sincere apologies if it has. And if not, I would be very grateful if a fix could be implemented.

Again thanks for making such an amazing product!
Nic
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philenotfound
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Re: Hi-Def NES HDMI Adapter for the NES

Post by philenotfound »

IMG_20170425_170442.jpg
Is this the result of the mentioned palette screwiness?
That is on a NTSC Rev. G PPU with a Famicom Adapter.
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Bratwurst
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Re: Hi-Def NES HDMI Adapter for the NES

Post by Bratwurst »

kevtris wrote:I might be able to stuff a few more palettes in, like 2-3 more. which ones should I include? This is probably the last thing I can add because the ROM inside is full up too. This design is using literally every resource available on the FPGA now.
If you're not using any of these yet, here are some potential considerations.

http://www.firebrandx.com/nespalette.html
MobiusStripTech
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Joined: Tue Apr 25, 2017 9:28 am

Re: Hi-Def NES HDMI Adapter for the NES

Post by MobiusStripTech »

I know I have had a number of customers request the nes classic palette. I agree with everyone who has pointed out using firebrandx palettes. I don't know of anyone that actually uses the black and white so if one had to be removed to make room, I would vote for that one.
flamepanther
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Re: Hi-Def NES HDMI Adapter for the NES

Post by flamepanther »

kevtris wrote:I might be able to stuff a few more palettes in, like 2-3 more. which ones should I include? This is probably the last thing I can add because the ROM inside is full up too. This design is using literally every resource available on the FPGA now.
1st choice: "NTSC Hardware"
http://www.firebrandx.com/nespalette.html
Closest possible to the actual output of an NES console.

2nd choice: "Hybrid"
http://rgbsource.blogspot.com/2016/11/n ... e.html?m=1
Strikes a gorgeous balance between accurate(ish), dark, muddy, direct-capture colors and too-bright oversaturated emulator colors. It's prettier than the real thing without looking weird in Castlevania and Mega Man 2.

3rd choice: "PVM Style"
http://www.firebrandx.com/nespalette.html
Simulates the look of an NES on a PVM over composite.

I can't speak for others, but I'd happily give up the black-and-white palette to make room, if needed. I wouldn't miss the X-ray filter if it made room for something useful either.
RGBSource
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Re: Hi-Def NES HDMI Adapter for the NES

Post by RGBSource »

kevtris wrote:I might be able to stuff a few more palettes in, like 2-3 more. which ones should I include? This is probably the last thing I can add because the ROM inside is full up too. This design is using literally every resource available on the FPGA now.
It would be excellent if you could add HYBRID and NESCAP palettes to the Hi-Def NES!

http://rgbsource.blogspot.com/2016/11/n ... lance.html
Great Hierophant
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Re: Hi-Def NES HDMI Adapter for the NES

Post by Great Hierophant »

Would it be possible to add a custom palette entry or two that you could burn to the firmware with a small special utility? That way anyone could add any palette they liked, all it has to be is 192 byte file.
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kevtris
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Re: Hi-Def NES HDMI Adapter for the NES

Post by kevtris »

philenotfound wrote:
IMG_20170425_170442.jpg
Is this the result of the mentioned palette screwiness?
That is on a NTSC Rev. G PPU with a Famicom Adapter.
yes, that is it. This should be fixed now. for good, I hope. I haven't tried it on a twin famicom, but I do have one here. not sure if I will have time to open it up and put the mod on for testing though. Modding the twin fami is tricky because the way it handles power is... weird. it really should have the power system redone. The problem is they use a discrete regulator, and the power switch does not turn the power on and off. It controls the base drive to the pass transistor! I don't know why they did this. The heatsink is obnoxiously large, too.
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kevtris
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Re: Hi-Def NES HDMI Adapter for the NES

Post by kevtris »

looks like I fixed the "wigglin' pixels" PAL problem too. This was caused by capturing the data at the wrong place. Jason sent me 5 sets of PAL chips, 3 sets of laser H rev chips, and a weird ebay sourced counterfeit CPU for testing.

4/5 sets of PAL chips had the wiggling pixel issue (As people have shown earlier in the thread) where leading edges of solid colour areas have a wiggling border. This is fixed now for 5/5 sets of PAL chips I have here.

The address line filter fix fixed the 3 laser H rev PPUs showing bad palettes/tiles, and several of the PAL chips had this issue too- but that is all fixed as well!

The counterfeit CPU interestingly works perfectly fine, and has looped noise and the duty cycles don't appear to be swapped. I am not sure who made it. It doesn't have ejector pin marks on it, so it's not the UMC chip and not a legit chip. The non-rev CPUs don't have ejector pins either, but this chip has looped noise so I don't think it's one of those. The chip gets a bit hotter than a regular E/G/H rev CPU, too. The chip is blacktopped, then laser marked "RP2A03E" (lol). I don't think they were using laser marking in the mid 80's! I heard of people buying these off ebay and getting PAL chips instead of NTSC ones. This chip is definitely NTSC, I ran the "flowing palette" demo and it worked properly so the timing is right.
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lidnariq
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Re: Hi-Def NES HDMI Adapter for the NES

Post by lidnariq »

Could be a rebadged TA-03N... I remember reading that they ran hot but were otherwise quite accurate 2A03G copies.
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kevtris
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Re: Hi-Def NES HDMI Adapter for the NES

Post by kevtris »

Well here it is, after 14 months!

http://blog.kevtris.org/blogfiles/HiDef ... 20beta.nes

Changes:

* Audio DC level restoration to fix some monitors that'd be silent or have other weird audio volume issues.
* FDS channel redone to be hopefully more accurate.
* DPCM fixed to allow retriggering.
* Address bus filtering fixed so that graphical/palette glitches should be a thing of the past.
* PAL pixel capturing fixed.
* 4 new palettes added.
* Removed interpolation and associated menu. I needed the logic gates in the FPGA to fix the other things.

I tested 5 sets of PAL chips- 1 set always worked, but the other 4 had minor to very severe "speckling". These are all working perfectly now.
I tested 3 sets of "laser H rev" parts as found in the newest AV famicoms (I think) and they are all working perfect now as well.

This should fix all the problems people had I hope.

This update is a beta because I am not 100% sure I didn't break something else relating to DPCM, so if I did please let me know.

The four new palettes are:

Firebrand X NTSC
Firebrand X PVM D93
RGBSOURCE Hybrid
RGBSOURCE NESCAP

The original 4 palettes are still in there of course.

Hope that's enough because this thing is fulllllllll up. There is absolutely no room left anywhere. I have scavenged it all. btw,
the xray mode is "free" so it doesn't use any logic elements. It's the internal decisions being made about the HQX stuff. It's basically detecting edges.
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kjetil_f
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Re: Hi-Def NES HDMI Adapter for the NES

Post by kjetil_f »

kevtris wrote:Well here it is, after 14 months!

http://blog.kevtris.org/blogfiles/HiDef ... 20beta.nes
This is good news. Hope this can help the Pal-consoles. Any special way to update the firmware, or is it just to put the .nes-file into my Everdrive and start it up?
Johnpv
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Location: New Jersey

Re: Hi-Def NES HDMI Adapter for the NES

Post by Johnpv »

AWESOME! Thanks for fitting 4 new palettes in there, that's super fantastic. Can't wait to get out of work, get home, and get this new firmware on there!

Thanks again for this awesome mod!
teknix1
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Joined: Tue Apr 25, 2017 7:48 am

Re: Hi-Def NES HDMI Adapter for the NES

Post by teknix1 »

Awesome work, thanks for your hard work Kev!

Any chance someone could comment on my wavy lines (missing pixel) issue at the top of the image? Are people not having the same problem? If so, is it just not bothering you or is there a way to make it better?

Thanks
Nic
Zantony
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Re: Hi-Def NES HDMI Adapter for the NES

Post by Zantony »

I'm having trouble updating from 2.25. I'm using an (unfortunately) knockoff/clone EverDrive. Loading the HidefNES firmware update ROM leads to a gray screen and HidefNES's firmware update process fails the integrity check.

Just an FYI in case anyone else is in a similar position. Suppose it's time I upgraded to a legit EverDrive.
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