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Bishonen
Joined: 17 May 2007
Posts: 44
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 Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 6:48 pm Post subject: NES Flashcard released... |
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Looks like an US Developer has released an NES Flashcard with Compact Flash Cards as Memory...
http://www.retrousb.com/index.php?categoryID=86
The Price is Ok... but... the card is already "Temporarily Unavailable"...
The Card has also another big Problem: IT DOES NOT WORK ON NES/FAMICOM CLONES - like FC Twin, Gen NEX or anything else... so it's useless for me...
I hope TOTOTEK will someday release an NES Flashcard... i would take one FOR SURE! |
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kyuusaku
Joined: 26 Jul 2003
Posts: 941
Location: .ma.us
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| Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 8:01 pm Post subject: |
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Some things I should point out:
-It uses SRAM as memory, it uses CF for game storage.
-It probably DOES work on certain FC clones but no support will provided if you use clones because clones are inaccurate and don't necessarily follow certain consistencies that the PowerPak exploits.
-It's sold out but it's NOT a final product, in it's current incarnation it's aimed at people with some technical skill, particularly NES developers who can troubleshoot obstacles in getting games working correctly. The people that own one now are acting as guineapigs. The Powerpak is also being recalled for a slight fix, because it doesn't function properly on all models of OFFICIAL systems. This fix is easy to preform yourself, but beyond the scope of what your average user should have to do to get something up and going.
-Don't hold your breath for Tototek to make one, unlike most consoles a NES "flashcart" requires extensive development and extended support since there's a multitude of hardware present in different games. It also requires high tech "reprogrammable" hardware which is not necessary for any other console which raises the engineering difficulty greatly. It could take months to years to develop a comprehensive product for NES as opposed to days to weeks for most other consoles. |
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Bishonen
Joined: 17 May 2007
Posts: 44
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| Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 10:04 pm Post subject: |
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I know that the CF is for storage... sorry for saying "Memory"...
How can it be so difficult to design a NES Flashcard... i mean SNES is pretty complex... all those Custom Chips inside the SNES and in the Cartridges... even the in 1996 released Super Wild Card DX2 can't deal with a lot of Carts...
What's the Problem with the NES?? Sorry... i may be an advanced User, but this is one level to high for me...
It's so easy to emulate... even an GBA can do this... pleeeaaaazzzz explain...  |
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kyuusaku
Joined: 26 Jul 2003
Posts: 941
Location: .ma.us
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| Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 11:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Bishonen wrote: | | How can it be so difficult to design a NES Flashcard... i mean SNES is pretty complex... all those Custom Chips inside the SNES and in the Cartridges... even the in 1996 released Super Wild Card DX2 can't deal with a lot of Carts... |
SNES cartridges are not complex, they are really simple since there's only a handful of cart configurations and there is only one ROM bus. The logic needed for decoding the ROMs and SRAM can be staticly embedded into the copier or "flashcart". This can't be done with NES because MOST games contain custom chips which need to be emulated. The Powerpak contains a FPGA which is a reconfigurable logic device. Each time you play a game on it, you are loading along with the game a configuration file which makes the FPGA take on the logic of the custom chip needed for that particular game.
| Quote: | What's the Problem with the NES?? Sorry... i may be an advanced User, but this is one level to high for me...
It's so easy to emulate... even an GBA can do this... pleeeaaaazzzz explain... :oops: |
NES is definitely not an easy system to emulate accurately since many games rely on precise raster timing. Processing the display pixel for pixel is very slow computationally and handheld NES emulators aren't even close to being fast enough to do it. They have to rely on high-level emulation and numerous hacks for speed. |
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Bishonen
Joined: 17 May 2007
Posts: 44
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| Posted: Sat Jun 23, 2007 7:20 am Post subject: |
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Ahhh... i understand...
What about these early Backup-Stations for NES... like the Mini Doctor, Turbo Doctor 4+ and 6, made by the Venus Corp. or Game Doctor, Game Master etc... from Bung... how did these units handel all these Problems?
BTW: Did Nintendo made this architecture purposefully so difficult, or is this rather an accident, like an Atari Jaguar is rather difficulte to emulate cause his internal architecture is so weired? |
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kyuusaku
Joined: 26 Jul 2003
Posts: 941
Location: .ma.us
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| Posted: Sat Jun 23, 2007 2:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Bishonen wrote: | Ahhh... i understand...
What about these early Backup-Stations for NES... like the Mini Doctor, Turbo Doctor 4+ and 6, made by the Venus Corp. or Game Doctor, Game Master etc... from Bung... how did these units handel all these Problems? |
Well, the Mini Doctor only has logic in it, no memory. When you load a special FDS game on it, it switches the memory area from the RAM cart to that of a cartridge game. It can only play the original games (NROM) without any sort of special chips.
Turbo Game Doctors and Game Doctors are much like SNES copiers (except less compatible), the early ones contain built in logic to run a handful of very simple extra chips (these chips aren't custom and are used in games from 1986-1987). How they handle games with custom chips is the games are hacked to use another more powerful logic custom to that copier. When games are hacked (most games after 1987 have to be hacked for Game Doctors) they often have graphical glitches because the timing is off. The timing is off because games aren't optimized for Game Doctor's hardware, they're optimized for whatever is in the real cartridge, so the hacker has to alter the game code to make it compatible with the Game Doctor and always this code is slower than the original. Even the latest Game Doctors don't have some features necessary for later games. Powerpak is different in that the hardware is capable of taking on ANY game, there are very few limitations and no games need to be hacked like a Game Doctor.
| Bishonen wrote: | | BTW: Did Nintendo made this architecture purposefully so difficult, or is this rather an accident, like an Atari Jaguar is rather difficulte to emulate cause his internal architecture is so weired? |
NES's architecture is fairly simple, it's just that people don't emulate it correctly because either they don't understand all the hardware, they developed the emulator before the NESdev scene figured out how everything really worked, or because the accurate way to emulate the system is too slow for them. It's also not necessary to be accurate for most games.
The extra chips in FC games came about in 1986, 3 years after it's release. It's safe to say Nintendo originally had no intension of using them since they could've built one into the system making cartridges very simple like SNES which is cheaper. They started using them when they wanted games with more than 32kb of program, and 8kb of graphics data which is the limit imposed by the system without any special chips. |
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Bishonen
Joined: 17 May 2007
Posts: 44
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| Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2007 8:59 am Post subject: |
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Got it... isn't it funny that the Famicom was a such a huge Problem for the Game Copier Ind. and that the SNES was just a child's play...
Why didn't Nintendo applied an similar architecture to the SNES System and his Cartridges to stop Pirates? |
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kyuusaku
Joined: 26 Jul 2003
Posts: 941
Location: .ma.us
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| Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 12:12 am Post subject: |
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| Because bankswitching isn't necessary on a system with a 24-bit (16MiB) address space when most games of the time are well under 4MiB. |
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acem77
Joined: 25 Jul 2003
Posts: 180
Location: usa,ohio
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| Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 12:05 am Post subject: |
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i always love reading kyuusakus post and replies.
i wish i had some friends like him near by to hang with i never get bored of this type of talk/info. |
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