Messages

1

FXPAK (SD2SNES) / Re: SD2SNES/FXPAK Pro lose sync

« on: March 30, 2020, 12:36 PM »

Cool, thanks! Could you do a closeup of the bottom of the PCB, of the area I marked in the photo?

Regarding the other glitch it may need attention but it could just have been a general contact issue. If you like try wiggling the cartridge back and forth a bit during operation and see if it crashes easily.

2

FXPAK (SD2SNES) / Re: SD2SNES/FXPAK Pro lose sync

« on: March 29, 2020, 04:27 PM »

Thanks for testing! If you are willing to open your SFC could you tell me its PCB model number (something like SHVC-CPU-01)? It's probably printed on the PCB beneath the front metal shielding.

3

FXPAK (SD2SNES) / Re: SD2SNES/FXPAK Pro lose sync

« on: March 25, 2020, 01:05 AM »

Hi!

Please see http://krikzz.com/forum/index.php?topic=9512.msg73754#msg73754 for a brief analysis. Right now I'm trying to get my head wrapped around it.
Since you mention living in Europe, would there be any chance that you would be willing to lend me your console (shipping cost covered by me) so I can investigate the issue further?
I have around a dozen SNES/SFCs including old models but none show the issue

4

FXPAK (SD2SNES) / Re: SD2SNES Pro goes crazy

« on: March 25, 2020, 01:02 AM »

I've received a bunch of reports now, all with different flavors of losing sync, color, displaying intermittent garbage etc.
I have a suspicion that some consoles can get their system clock disturbed by the fxpak/sd2snes pro. It appears that older NTSC consoles (1/1/1, 2/1/1, 2/1/2) are most susceptible.

Recently I tried debugging this with someone on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/orzvektor/status/1238019328039149568
https://twitter.com/jtduckmann/status/1233672815909335041
I suggest a test there to see if that improves anything. If you feel up to the task it would be very helpful if you could try the same (temporarily tape off pin 1 on the cartridge) and see if it helps with the issue.

5

FXPAK (SD2SNES) / Re: FXPAK Pro not working with SuperNT

« on: March 18, 2020, 12:41 PM »

SuperNt has a bit of a strange booting behaviour, it seems that a change in CIC state / pair mode entry can make it crash.
The SuperCIC firmware on the OG sd2snes technically had a bug which always makes the CIC handshake fail when resetting the console after entering pair mode. SuperNt behaves differently from a usual SNES in that it resets the CIC twice on bootup instead of only once. Therefore it has some come to rely on pair mode entry never working properly. So the SuperNt tends to crash when SuperCIC handshakes actually work properly as is now the case with sd2snes / FXPAK pro!
By the time I noticed the difference it was too late So I implemented a workaround that momentarily delays pair mode entry on console reset... it appears that it isn't working for everyone so this needs more attention. I suspect that there are also differences in behaviour depending on the model of the SuperNt (different SuperCIC lock firmwares used...?)

Either way this problem should only occur when pair mode is allowed in the FXPAK configuration.
To check if pair mode is allowed, open sd2snes/config.yml on your SD card and look for the option "PairModeAllowed". Setting it to 'false' might help with the issue at hand.

On a side note, CIC clock is super low on SuperNt. Usually it's between 3 and 4 MHz depending on the SNES model. SuperNt runs it at ~1.7MHz. But that shouldn't matter in normal operation.

As for the diagnostic firmware failing, that's most likely due to the SuperNt not booting up in time for the test. Results may also change when setting it to boot directly to the cartridge without entering the splash screen or the menu.

6

FXPAK (SD2SNES) / Re: SDSNES PRO - Choices are not highlighted in menu

« on: February 02, 2020, 05:07 PM »

Color math is probably broken on your PPU2. Some tests (color effects) in the Burn-In Cartridge demo will probably look wrong, too. I think there is a reference video on YouTube.

7

FXPAK (SD2SNES) / Re: Is it physically impossible to emulate the Super Gameboy on the SD2SNES?

« on: January 30, 2020, 05:50 PM »

That is very easy to do on NES (within its palette/resolution capabilities of course) but impossible on SNES.
On NES the graphics chip is connected directly to the cartridge slot, on SNES everything has to be copied from cartridge to the graphics chip using the CPU / DMA.
To make matters worse you can only transfer to the graphics chip when it's not drawing anything on screen, so it's just waiting 85% of the time (on NTSC).

Regarding cores, actually it's already loading individual cores for their respective special chip support Note that the FXPAK Pro FPGA is only around 10% the size of MiSTer so it wouldn't get you very far anyway

8

FXPAK (SD2SNES) / Re: FXPAK PRO USB NOT WORKING ON WIN 10 PRO

« on: January 14, 2020, 09:25 AM »

Did you also install the usb2snes firmware on the FXPAK Pro? https://github.com/RedGuyyyy/sd2snes/releases
Otherwise the USB port will be inactive.
Official firmware will support USB from version 1.11.0 (which is the upcoming release).

9

FXPAK (SD2SNES) / Re: Input Display on SD2SNES Pro with USB2SNES Firmware

« on: January 14, 2020, 09:21 AM »

SMW has a peculiar memory layout for controller input (one portion of the buttons is two bytes away from the other in RAM). I've been tinkering with Input Viewer lately and can't it to work correctly for SMW because there seems to be no way to specify individual addresses for the two separate locations to pull the controller input from, it always assumes that the bytes are right next to each other. Therefore A, X, L, R can't be displayed correctly.
It would be a suggestion to the author of Input Viewer to support "scattered" controller input bytes

10

FXPAK (SD2SNES) / Re: SD2SNES Pro Black Screen

« on: January 14, 2020, 09:14 AM »

Looks like at least one defective RAM chip or a number of faulty connections between FPGA and RAM chips (not as many as the test suggest since a lot of them will be subsequent faults).
I'd recommend returning it for a replacement (if applicable).

11

FXPAK (SD2SNES) / Re: SD2SNES not working after being put into cartridge slot backwards

« on: January 02, 2020, 02:57 PM »

Hmm, sd2snes should have some protection against inverse polarity unless you connect any other grounded cables to it (e.g. USB) but it's probably not bullet proof. Q301 is supposed to conduct only if polarity is correct. It is located near the cart slot edge on the side of the PCB normally facing front. When inserted and powered up, the top left pin (near the "C111" printing) should have 5V. If you don't get any voltage there, check the input (single bottom pin of Q301). If there isn't anything either, L391, a bit to the right, may have burnt out (or it was shaved off by the cartridge slot lid on the SNES).

12

FXPAK (SD2SNES) / Re: SD2SNES (non pro version) which bios files are required? Which files are not?

« on: December 31, 2019, 01:29 AM »

Cx4 is also built-in as of v0.1.7pre1 The cx4.bin file only contains some non-copyrightable math lookup tables so it was embedded into the FPGA configuration.

13

FXPAK (SD2SNES) / Re: SD2SNES Pro goes crazy

« on: December 31, 2019, 01:18 AM »

Losing sync when the screen goes black could also point to a different issue (although it might also happen when you run a US/JP console on an AC power supply) related to video levels vs. sync coming from your RGB/component cable.
Other than that, internal power supply components of the SNES might come into play (capacitors, voltage regulator), not unlike the issue described here: http://krikzz.com/forum/index.php?topic=8771.msg72000#msg72000
Checking the differences between 1.10.2 and 1.10.3 I found no changes that would explain a significant change in the behaviour...
I assume that 1chip transient fixes and brightness limit are disabled in the "In-game Settings" menu?

14

FXPAK (SD2SNES) / Re: SD2SNES Pro Black Screen

« on: December 31, 2019, 01:06 AM »

It appears that there is a bad solder joint or damaged RAM chip on your sd2snes. Could you post the entire log somewhere?

15

FXPAK (SD2SNES) / Re: Corrupted FMV video for Zelda Redux (Video inside!)

« on: December 31, 2019, 01:05 AM »

That is a strange misbehaviour of the SNES hardware actually. Depending on the layout of DMA vs. HDMA channels it sometimes ignores data transfers when HDMA to register $2100 is carried out on a channel adjacent to a general purpose DMA channel (which is what my player did to limit the visible picture area to 160 scanlines). Thus it simply doesn't transfer the entire image properly.
I had made an updated version of the example video player (the usage of which I always discouraged because it is quite limited) but I don't think it has been adopted very much.


... Now that I think about it, register $2100 and $2133 have more recently been discovered as "somewhat special" in that they are sensitive to the clock phase relation of S-CPU vs. S-PPUs with regard to HDMA operation. Can you check if "Reset patch for clock phase" is enabled in the "In-game Settings" menu and if by any chance enabling it helps with the issue?