Compatibility with RetroUSB's AVS??

[ginoscope]

I just received my AVS yesterday and haven't encountered any issues with my N8. Expansion audio works and sounds good (variable expansion volume is nice) and no crashes/freezes like I get with my Analogue Nt (tested SMB2USA and Ninja Gaiden 3, among others).

You mention expansion audio. Does Retro USB have its own expansion audio support or does it rely on the N8?

AVS will just play what the cartridge sends into it.  If you are using a famicom cart with expansion audio it will play the audio.  If you use a famicom/NES n8 the audio will also be played. 

[mario64]

I just received my AVS yesterday and haven't encountered any issues with my N8. Expansion audio works and sounds good (variable expansion volume is nice) and no crashes/freezes like I get with my Analogue Nt (tested SMB2USA and Ninja Gaiden 3, among others).

You mention expansion audio. Does Retro USB have its own expansion audio support or does it rely on the N8?

AVS will just play what the cartridge sends into it.  If you are using a famicom cart with expansion audio it will play the audio.  If you use a famicom/NES n8 the audio will also be played.

That doesn't really answer my question. An actual AV Famicom cannot play expansion audio from Konami VRC7 games when using the N8 because that mapper has not been fully implemented. HiDef NES, however, can because it has built in expansion audio support. My question is, does Retro USB have its own expansion audio support or does it rely on the cart?

[hunterk]

No, the AVS just has an analog-to-digital converter and pipes whatever audio comes from the cart into the HDMI stream. In the case of VRC7, you will get sound effects but no expansion audio. Akumajou Densetsu and Gimmick! sound great, though. As always with the N8, FDS expansion audio isn't awesome but it's (sometimes) better than nothing. FDSStick+RAM adapter sound perfect.

[mario64]

No, the AVS just has an analog-to-digital converter and pipes whatever audio comes from the cart into the HDMI stream. In the case of VRC7, you will get sound effects but no expansion audio. Akumajou Densetsu and Gimmick! sound great, though. As always with the N8, FDS expansion audio isn't awesome but it's (sometimes) better than nothing. FDSStick+RAM adapter sound perfect.

Gotcha thanks

[opt2not]

Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but Loopy's mappers support VRC6 expansion audio for Akumajou Densetsu (Castlevania III) but not VRC7 for Langrange Point. I've recently messaged Retrousb asking about VRC7 support, but haven't heard back from them yet.  Would be amazing to have Langrange Point running on the AVS with the proper expansion audio music. That soundtrack is so good.

Loopy's also supports MMC5 but without the expansion audio as well.

You can see a list of additional mappers support from Loopy and TheFox, for the powerpak here:
https://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/PowerPak

[MP2E]

I've been holding off on the AVS, If anyone could test Ultima Exdous, I'd appreciate it. Its got horizontal line glitches on the hi def kit. I'd like to see if they happen on the AVS too. Here's a video of the problem. Its happens on Org Cart and N8, either is fine to test for the problem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izHbbEa385U

Watched the video, this glitch is known on nesdev and is a PPU bug caused by certain CPU-PPU alignments when a game writes to $2000 midscanline. Changing the phase option on your console might help, but if you are getting visual artifacts for each phase, then the rom will need to be patched to stop it from writing to $2000 midscanline.

Thankfully if you don't mind using rom hacks to fix the issue, they aren't too bad to create. I've slowly been working on patching games with these issues in my free time, Super Mario Bros was giving me the same issue and I managed to patch it such that it looks perfect on all phases.

I would not mind taking a look at patching Ultima after I take a look at Zelda 2. I have no guarantees but the work really isn't difficult, provided there's enough space in the rom for my new NMI guard routine to fit, which isnt too many bytes.

Of course, the AVS and Analogue NT Mini should both sidestep this problem as they won't be simulating the corrupted scan line bug. It's never used to any positive effect by any homebrew or commercial games today.

[Thomas83Lin]

That would be awesome. I've researched the issue a little already myself, seen someone already patched VS Mario to fix the NMI routine as well. I've looked into how they patched VS Mario, but was unsuccessful recreating the patch for Smb. do you plan on releasing IPS patch fixes? for Zelda2\Smb. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks

edit: btw changing the phase option, fixes the lines but creates annoying speckles. There is really no walk around on the hi def kit. I literally have to use a non modded nes to play the game glitch free.

[MP2E]

That would be awesome. I've researched the issue a little already myself, seen someone already patched VS Mario to fix the NMI routine as well. I've looked into how they patched VS Mario, but was unsuccessful recreating the patch for Smb. do you plan on releasing IPS patch fixes? for Zelda2\Smb. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks

edit: btw changing the phase option, fixes the lines but creates annoying speckles. There is really no walk around on the hi def kit. I literally have to use a non modded nes to play the game glitch free.

Sure, I don't mind! I just didn't know if there was any demand for it. Here is the Super Mario Bros IPS patch, created from the latest no-intro rom (I think other super mario bros roms should work fine though)

https://www.mediafire.com/?wyzmgaknsoir659

From what I've seen from playing through it a few times, the game functions perfectly fine including glitches with the exception of the Minus World glitch. I used a high level disassembly I found on romhacking.net because I wasn't sure what free space is available just by looking at the rom in the fceux debugger, so the ROM layout is shifted, meaning the minus world glitch jumps to the same address, but it has different data. (investigating more thoroughly into it after I get a few other games working with the fix)

Other than that it should be absolutely perfect and if you find any bugs please let me know! There shouldn't be any at all, but you never know.

I'd like to make this patch more minimalist at some point so that it doesn't shift over the rom data, but I have never programmed in assembly before taking up this project so this is all quite new to me! In the case of Zelda 2, there will not be a high level disassembly available as no one has made one, but I am still optimistic about patching the game as it is very easy to extend the rom space and add new routines to the new empty space, overwriting select bytes in the old code to call my new code without shifting any code around.

Anyone is free to contribute! If you would like to look in to how I did this, download the high level disassembly I linked to and check out my changes here! http://pastebin.com/u7bAWW0G

[Thomas83Lin]

Much appreciated!!  I believe once more hi def kits get released, there will be more demand for fixes. I'm honestly surprised more people haven't noticed. I've seen the glitch in a few different titles. Some games not as noticeable as others. Ultima is just one of the games I'd like to mostly see fixed. So Thanks Again, btw PM me if you have any progress on Ultima.

list of games I've seen it in

Smb
Zelda 2
Ultima Exdous
Iron Tank
Guerrilla War

edit: quickly tested smb with the fix, works great!! if I notice anything i'll let you know. 

[Slashbunny]

Reformat the sd-card and restore the OS and ROMs from an original source. DO NOT just copy them from the card to your computer and then back again.

Download a new copy of the latest OS from the site here, and load the roms from wherever you store them on your pc. Then, test to eliminate the possibility that it is structure/file corruption on your card. Then test with a different SD card, if you have one, that is a different brand and possibly not UHS-I.

Thanks for the tip. I formatted the SD card and re-extracted the ROMs onto card and have been playing on the AVS without issues so far this evening.

Pretty strange that it worked, since my N8 and SD card is fairly new and I basically just did this process a few months ago (formatted and extracted ROMs onto it), but I'm not complaining

[thecavalry]

Reformat the sd-card and restore the OS and ROMs from an original source. DO NOT just copy them from the card to your computer and then back again.

Download a new copy of the latest OS from the site here, and load the roms from wherever you store them on your pc. Then, test to eliminate the possibility that it is structure/file corruption on your card. Then test with a different SD card, if you have one, that is a different brand and possibly not UHS-I.

Thanks for the tip. I formatted the SD card and re-extracted the ROMs onto card and have been playing on the AVS without issues so far this evening.

Pretty strange that it worked, since my N8 and SD card is fairly new and I basically just did this process a few months ago (formatted and extracted ROMs onto it), but I'm not complaining

Glad it worked for you. I had an issue some time back trying to get an OS update to work and ended up with my N8 not loading at all until I reformatted and reloaded everything fresh. I think the Everdrive N8 is just a bit temperamental with certain SD cards and file/structure changes. Seems to be a good catch all for general weirdness and freezing.

[Great Hierophant]

I just received my AVS yesterday and haven't encountered any issues with my N8. Expansion audio works and sounds good (variable expansion volume is nice) and no crashes/freezes like I get with my Analogue Nt (tested SMB2USA and Ninja Gaiden 3, among others).

You mention expansion audio. Does Retro USB have its own expansion audio support or does it rely on the N8?

It relies on the N8 or other Famicom cartridge with audio hardware.

[leonquest]

I tried to convince kevtris to make his verilog VRC7 algorithm public by offering him money, but he never replied again, maybe I offered too little. Hell, I was even planning to start up an indie gogo in order to gather the money for him, but he just never gave me a number of how much he wanted for it.

Oh well, I guess we'll have to wait for necronomfive to come back some day and suprise us all. Or some other unsung hero from the internet. I will keep my hopes up, Lagrange Point looks too amazing to play it on emulators.

[hunterk]

now that kevtris is working for Analogue, I'd guess the likelihood of him providing specs/code for use in competing products is roughly zero.

[brento1138]

No, the AVS just has an analog-to-digital converter and pipes whatever audio comes from the cart into the HDMI stream. In the case of VRC7, you will get sound effects but no expansion audio. Akumajou Densetsu and Gimmick! sound great, though. As always with the N8, FDS expansion audio isn't awesome but it's (sometimes) better than nothing. FDSStick+RAM adapter sound perfect.

I have an EverDrive and put it in my AVS and tested both the Japanese version of Castlevania 3 and the USA version.  The sound is remarkably different, with more channels coming from the Japanese version.

So, is it my EverDrive that is sending the extra audio channels to the AVS or is the AVS emulating them?