You all with the post office complaints should read this novel:
You’ll laugh your asses off. If you get to page number 3 and aren’t hooked… well I don’t really know what to tell you.
Haha yeah, I’ve heard of that book before!
I’m happy now regardless. I know my console is no longer in limbo and has passed customs in the US.
It’s just such a contrast to my NT Mini order…but then again I was so surprised by that it could easily be classed as a one off.
One week from US to UK is still good.
This level of dedication is just incredible.
Bukowski is awesome! Factotum is my favorite but Post Office is close behind. Women wasn’t as good but still had some good parts.
My Super NT got here yesterday but I just got home. Fam in town so I won’t be able to spend some time with it until later in the week.
Not interested in the Super Nt as-is, given the HDMI-only output and the 60Hz-lock output (but the MLiG video made it seem like this was more flexible than I thought?). Still, I’m really glad that it’s getting so much buzz and can’t wait for an open FPGA console that can handle these super accurate 16-bit cores with options like direct Analog output (hopefully component especially) and 1:1 clocks.
It would be great if when the external DAC is released the console could output the correct SNES Hz since a CRT would handle that no problem.
I think a firmware update will allow for 60.09Hz for use with the upcoming DAC.
I’m less sure now. Kevin posted in Atari Age:
I cannot output a 60.09fps hdmi signal if that’s what people are asking. I can’t lock the two PLLs together (system and video) so it’s a non starter. Also, I don’t want incompatibility issues with monitors that cause it to not work. i.e. someone turns that mode on, without knowing what it does, then after that, the monitor goes dead and they get no video any more.
Welp, that’s that. Guess the solution now is the best one.
Mine left California (why the fuck would it go to california from nevada on its way to NJ) on the 7th and has not been seen since…
When it first came out with them using UPS ground some one on twitter tried to defend it with “UPS gives the most accurate and more frequent tracking updates”…right.
I queried Kevin Horton about this on Atari Age and here is his reply:
no, the video is all generated internally to the FPGA. There’s several PLLs on the FPGA itself, and I am using those to generate the various clocks. There’s around 22 clock domains on the design as it stands. The problem is I would need some non-integer N/M ratio to get the right clock for the HDMI stuff from the 21.47Mhz domain. Right now video gets a clock that varies depending on video mode. i.e. it’s 148.5Mhz in 1080p mode. There’s no easy way to lock the two PLLs together (the one generating 21.47Mhz and the 148.5Mhz one) in the proper ratio to offer 60.09 hdmi.
The video always runs at 60.00 fps and it will cause cycle stealing on the snes side to make it stay in synch with the hdmi for the zero delay mode. If you run full/single buffered, the cycle stealing is turned off and is allowed to free run.
After talking with some others on the Discord tonight I hooked up the NT Mini, out of curiosity, and made these findings per the OSSC display:
NES runs (according to OSSC) at 60.08hz
Atari 2600 runs at 60.07hz
Gameboy runs at 60.08hz
SMS runs at 59.91hz
John’s video is up.
Great video @Dark1x !
The Higan comparisons were VERY interesting. It just goes to show that the Super Nt is an emulator box at heart it’s just running on hardware with less overhead.
I’d be more interested in this when extra cores are added or if they add emulator-style nicities to it like CPU overclock.
My take away that even though it has a lot of similarities as higan there is one issue higan will not likely overcome which is the USB issue. There is always going to be that extra bit . Also higan needs a very high end machine to run it.
Higan/bsnes needed a “very high end machine” in 2010, but not today. You’re still not going to run it on a raspberry pi but I’d imagine any new prebuilt PC/laptop can handle it just fine.
Higan isn’t running my original cartridges via HDMI on my HDTV in the living room, either. That’s a significant distinction.
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I have an i5 6600k @ 4.2GHz and while running Higan through Retroarch with 6 frame delay, I will see some minor drops if I am streaming at the same time (Standalone Higan and the old Bsnes-Balanced core don’t see any drops). Granted this isn’t a monster CPU and streaming and frame delay make things more taxing than usual, but that CPU cost more than the Super Nt when I bought it (I know, apples to oranges).
That said, lag can an issue, but looking at lag tests with a high-FPS camera, it need not be if you are willing to set things up and have a CRT or fast LED monitor. Retroarch cores at least seem to be able to reach sub 1-frame lag over stock hardware. You have to tweak settings for that, but it’s possible. At that point, your display and wireless controller is probably adding more lag to the chain.
The Super Nt isn’t a PC and Higan on PC isn’t a Super Nt, but I wouldn’t feel bad about either option, especially after watching @Dark1x and his excellent review. Of course, if firmware comes along that allows similarly Higan SNES-quality cores for Genesis and TG-16 it’ll be hard to ignore.
raphnet adapters poll at 1000hz so it is possible to effectively eliminate that source of input lag.
my super nt should be with me any day and it will be very interesting to see if i can really feel any difference between it and higan running on retroarch with hard gpu sync, frame delay and the emulation down clocked to 60.00hz.
Both DF and MLiG videos were excellent. Great stuff.