So the SD2SNES, or FXPAK as I guess it's now called, finally got an update for the first time in three years, version 1.11.1. An update that is listed on the main page of the site but for some reason NOT listed in the downloads section which still lists 1.11.0...then again, the status page appears to not have been updated since 2019 since it still today lists that is upcoming in version 1.10, a version that came out in early 2019, and still claims some chips like the SDD-1 are not implemented yet when they are now, so the site is a decaying mess anyway.This thing has been lagging behind emulators and even other FPGA devices like the Mister for years now. So did this update finally add the long-promised SPC7110 support? Sufami Turbo? More features? No, it's... a bugfix release. Three years just to fix a few bugs on a device that despite running on real hardware lacks support for games that emulators and FPGA devices have supported for years, while the site itself still thinks it's 2019. As unremarkable as this update is however one thing did catch my eye:>[All] SA-1: fixed bus sampling/timing issues.Timings for the SA-1 were slightly wrong for years and most devs didn't realize, this difference didn't prevent any games from running properly but it was inaccurate to the real hardware and got fixed recently in emulators, as well as the Mister. Problem is this broke a lot of SA-1 based romhacks because they were fine-tuned to the old inaccurate timing, many of which were tested on the SD2SNES thinking it's SA-1 was accurate, these romhacks if loaded on a cart with a real SA-1 chip would also break, few bothered to do that though since it means destroying a real SA-1 game cart.So have people run into broken SA-1 romhacks with this update? Most of them appear to be Mario romhacks like A Plumber for All Seasons, Mario’s Mystery Meat, and various Yoshi level design contest packs.
>>12575874Honestly? I'm waiting for some chink to pull a SummerCart.
Maybe this update fixed the Mega Man X SA-1 patch? The previous stable firmware would black screen moments into the first stage.
>>12575952I doubt that's going to happen, the SNES is likely the most complicated system to make a flashcart for due to all the special chips, NES is likely second due to the literally hundreds of mappers used... or maybe even first after the SNES. The N64 is significantly simpler in that regard, pretty much no games used any add-on chips or any specialized hardware on the cart other than really one-shot examples like the RTC in Animal Crossing, that shogi game that had a built-in modem or that capture cart meant to be used with the 64DD. About the most "special" chips on the carts was that there was three different types of on-cart save methods used, battery-backed SDRAM, EEPROM, or Flashrom.Any chink flashcarts that are worth the price would likely support even less games than the SD2SNES or NES Everdrives. It's easier to make a 3DS or even Switch flashcart than a NES or SNES one, at last, ones that will play most retail games.
>>12575874>This thing has been lagging behind emulators and even other FPGA devices like the Mister for years now.Yeah but it costs like $100 (on aliexpress) whereas MiSTER is like fucking $500+
>>12576265
>>12576265*Under $200 on AliExpress
>>12576316Okay, well a DE10-Nano still costs like $500 so I don't really know what the hell that thing is.
>>12575972>SNES is likely the most complicated system to make a flashcart for due to all the special chips, NES is likely second due to the literally hundreds of mappers usedInteresting. Never looked into it, but figured this shit was easy
>>12576323Explain why a Chinese clone of a FXPak Pro is okay but a Chinese clone of a DE10-Nano is not okay.
>>12576335I'm not saying it's not okay I just didn't know you could get them that cheap, especially considering it would cost me $500 to order just a DE10-Nano board on its own.
>>12576316You're replying to a troll, him claiming Mister is $500 makes it obvious, common troll tactic in mister threads to claim it's $500-600. Getting Notice how he's now trying to claim the DE-10 Nano alone is $500 when an official one direct from Terasic is $225, and clones of just the DE-10 Nano alone are under $100.Even the argument of getting a SD2SNES for $100 of Aliexpress is dubious, because it's a roll of the dice if you get one with authentic parts or bootleg ones that don't work right, many of these bootleg devices tend to not support updating the firmware either, which will be a problem since SPC7110 support is coming soon, it's already being beta-tested. The reason it didn't release with 1.11.1 is because it's so picky to get right that it wasn't working correctly even on every official revision of the SD2SNES, it would be even worse on shoddy bootlegs.
>>12576329That's one of the main problems with making a flashcart for retro systems, the expansion chips some games had on the carts. Usually the majority of games didn't have one (NES is an exception where the vast majority did). So you can't just rely on loading the ROM data into the console's base hardware, you need to support those chips too. No single retail cartridge ever had all of them at once of course, 99% of them didn't have more than one, but the problem is if you are making a flashcart that supports hundreds of games, you need to support all the chips those games used too. Usually a FPGA is used for this, meaning that you are essentially hardware emulating the expansion chips, which of course if not implemented well can not be accurate to playing the game off a legit cart. And of course if the chip is not supported at all in the flashcart then the game won't work.This is why there is no single flashcart on the planet that can play every SNES and NES game, in fact, there is only one emulator in the world that I know of that can run every current NES game since it's goal is to try to support every mapper, too bad it's not as accurate as many other NES emulators. The Mister and SD2SNES wlll likely never run the ST011 and ST018 games, which I honestly don't think anyone cares since those were each just used in a single shogi game for it's AI and are just a laughably overpowered ARM CPU on the cart. As for NES, well, I think there are something like 500+ mappers now? (Though half of those are bootleg/homebrew mappers) so if you are making an NES flashcart, have fun trying to program a FPGA emulation of all of those for your cart.Majority of all other consoles rarely if ever had expansion chips on their carts so it's not anywhere near as hard to make one for them, from older systems like Genesis to modern ones like Switch, at worst a single oddball game or two would not work IF that system had a game with an expansion chip that is unfeasible to replicate
>>12576391>getting a SD2SNES for $100 of Aliexpress is dubious, because it's a roll of the dice if you get one with authentic parts or bootleg ones that don't work rightNo it isn't and you're now doing the same thing you're accusing the other guy of doing. You're not just reaching into a fucking dark hole and hoping for the best on AliExpress. Their reviews are generally honest and often from angry slavs if something isn't up to par. For flash carts there WILL be someone who's taken it apart and included photos in their review. If a listing doesn't have either of those things, you pick a different seller which does. Even then at least in my country you can return anything bought on AliExpress within 90 days for any reason, and they even pay for return shipping. Maybe that's different in the turd world, but that's not my concern.Buying from AliExpress is safer and more convenient for me than buying from Amazon or Ebay or just about any Western retailer. I can't think of one that'll take stuff back months later and give a full refund no questions asked.
>>12575972With older SNES backup devices you could insert a game with the same custom chip in the device's cartridge slot and it would use it for any backups that used the same chip. So if you had a physical Super Mario Kart you would be able to run any Super FX chip game. Was pretty nifty.
>>12576453yep, same with temu, I have never had a bad experience with either. Admittedly I've always been really careful buying on those sites, but it's totally untrue that their stuff is all shady and falls apart after a while. What they do is sell dirt cheap, complies with EU regulations (at least here in the EU), and there is no good reason not to buy from them.
>>12576394Just about all mappers used in official NES releases are supported by recent Flash carts excepting 1-2 Bandai mappers that have a small amount of on-chip RAM.
>>12576506what mappers are those?
>>12576535Mapper 16 and 159 with a small serial EEPROM. This is used by the following:>Dragon Ball Z II: Gekishin Freezer!!>Dragon Ball Z III: Ressen Jinzou Ningen>Dragon Ball Z Gaiden: Saiya-jin Zetsumetsu Keikaku>Rokudenashi Blues>SD Gundam Gaiden - Knight Gundam Monogatari 2: Hikari no Kishi>SD Gundam Gaiden - Knight Gundam Monogatari 3: Densetsu no Kishidan>Dragon Ball Z: Kyoushuu! Saiya-jin>Magical Taruruuto-kun>Magical Taruruuto-kun 2>SD Gundam Gaiden - Knight Gundam MonogatariFlash carts do not support these ten games.
>>12576543ah, ok. btw those Bandai mappers are pretty much an OEM MMC3. you could just do an MMC3 patch for these games and convert the EEPROM to ordinary WRAM. easy fix.
>>12576548there's a lot of NES mappers but most are just integrated switching logic and nothing that complicated to emulate (a few have sound stuff as well). SNES chips are a lot more complicated and many are actual co-processors.
>>12576543Most of these games aren't very good (>implying Bandai) but they should still be supported.
>>12576543>Famidaily reviews a Bandai game
>>12576597>>12576591Exactly. That's why we should do an MMC3 patch or something for those games. Why should he have all the fun of playing them to himself. (^:
>>12576543Didn't Magical Taruruuto-kun have a SNES version anyway?
>>12576625Yes it does.
>>12575952>I'm waiting for some chink to pull a SummerCart.This is that though
>>12575874Based. Fuck homebrew that only runs on shitty emulators.
>>12576453>No it isn't and you're now doing the same thing you're accusing the other guy of doing.Yes it is, I see countless posts of people mentioning that they got a bootleg FPGA on their cart or if a seller is safe, you can't assume a seller will keep the same stock all the time as well. I have seen people order multiples of the same item from the same seller in the same order and gotten different versions of them.>Buying from AliExpress is safer and more convenient for me than buying from Amazon or Ebay or just about any Western retailerSorry but this is just unbelievably retarded to say. It's one thing if you want to argue you haven't had issues with them, saying that their bootleg items and weeks-long shipping is more convenient than a place you can buy something from an authorized seller and have it arrive later that same day in many cases completely tanks any credibility your argument had.Don't think I didn't notice you completely ignored the fact that I pointed out how the other person was trying to claim something costs more than twice that it really.>>12576478IIRC that doesn't work for every kind of expansion chip, not all of them have their pins exposed to the connector. Also that would be pretty useless for chips that only one or a very small amount of games actually used (such as how the Cx4 chip was only used in Megaman X2 and 3). Game Genies pretty much all used this trick to bypass Nintendo's copy protection chips though.>>12576506Yes, I mentioned how half the mappers are just for bootleg and homebrew carts, which is where just about all the unsupported ones are. I doubt anyone cares that they can't get a bootleg 99999-in-1 cart to work but homebrew not working can be a pain. Also there were a few Jaleco and one Bandai Famicom games with a special voice chip that AFAIK NOTHING, no software emulator, FPGA, or flashcart supports. Pretty sure nobody has even actually dumped those chips, though the game itself still runs without them.
>>12576571True, and to add to that a lot of mappers, especially the ones used in bootleg games, tend to be very very similar to another existing mapper but just has one or two small things different. This along with just how many there are is a big reason why most don't bother putting in the effort to try to support every mapper.If you want to see an emulator that does, you can try puNES. I wouldn't recommend it for general NES playing since there are far more accurate NES emulators these days, but it can play games no other can since it strives to support every mapper, has a pretty useful iNES header viewer/editor as well.
>>12577314>True, and to add to that a lot of mappers, especially the ones used in bootleg games, tend to be very very similar to another existing mapper but just has one or two small things different.also as anon said a lot of third party mappers like the ones Konami, Namco, etc. used are just OEM versions of MMC3 or MMC5 and provide very similar capabilities so that if those games were localized outside Japan they could easily modify the code to support a standard Nintendo mapper.
>>12576506oh and it's not on-chip (although one Taito mapper did have on-chip RAM). it's a separate IC, but uses a funny access method which is probably why they didn't add support for it.
>>12577309>Also there were a few Jaleco and one Bandai Famicom games with a special voice chip that AFAIK NOTHING, no software emulator, FPGA, or flashcart supports. Pretty sure nobody has even actually dumped those chips, though the game itself still runs without them.It's some kind of sample-generation chip that contains no data to dump. The data is in the rom and gets fed to the circuit which generates the samples. The MAME team worked around it by recording the samples and having them be included in sound sample .zips to go with the roms, but other emulators really don't have a solution for that.
>>12577937For the US versions of Bases Loaded they converted the samples to normal PCM ones and moved them to the PRG ROM.
>>12577937If the samples were on the ROM then people would have been able to emulate it by now easily. I remember actually looking into the chips, they are full standalone speech synthesis chips, not just some sound generation chip that needs you to feed it samples. I remember once finding the manual for one of them on archive and it listed all the syllable samples that were in the chip that you could mix together to make speech.
>>12578286https://nescartdb.com/profile/view/1549/moero-pro-yakyuuIt technically is a ROM with 256k of space that the samples are etched into and there's circuitry to play them back.
You can technically still play those SNES shougi games on emulation just in two player mode.
>>12575874>MisterFuck off, loser.
>>12578307That's basically what I said.The anon at >>12577937 was saying that there is no data in the synthesis chip itself and that the samples are in the game ROM, I was saying that the samples along with the logic to play them back was on the chip and not in the game ROM.>>12578321There are software emulators now that can support those chips, I don't have a full list but I know that bsnes and ares are among them.
>>12578386You are patheticshut your bitch ass uplmao
>>12578864Make me~ ;3
