[X] My Assistant

There are like 22 new mega drive games in development this year. Its pretty hectic, its because the dev kit works pretty well still and has been improved so indy devs are dipping their toes in and then it can be deployed to other platforms with emulators I guess.
Sega also released new megadrive controllers on Amazon.

I was looking at maybe getting that Mega Sg - FGPA mega drive but its price has shot through the roof. I'd pay maybe 200 for it, not 700 dang.

There is a cheaper retron mega drive clone but it has poor reviews for reliability.
I am not sure if I should rebuy an actual mega drive, I'd ahve to mod it. I do have a broken, mini mega drive somewhere too that i could fix.

If you get/have one, don't want to mod it yourself, and you can do shipping, I'd be happy to mod a (real) mega drive for you.

I've modded three myself; everything from RGB stuff (the bypass, to avoid the composite subcarrier trace capacitively coupling with the blue output and creating jailbars) to TMSS removal and Mega Amp (amplifier fixes for the revisions with bad mixing/pre-amps). What kind of mods are we talking?

My personal system is an early-ish model 1 (genesis type), and is a mess because I learned everything on it before doing it for others. But it works. I've also worked on a model 2 and late model 1 (the one with the amp problem).

Also would be happy to assist if you just have questions or whatnot regarding modding while you're doing it yourself. And I have tons of schematics for it.

I have a couple newish (mini model 1) three button USB pads. I turned one into a real mega drive pad so that I could have one with red print on the buttons that has a D-pad which doesn't suck ass (the Saturn-style dpads are great, early controllers feel like Switch pro controller or master system pads though, and actuate diagonally way too easily).

If I could get my hands on a new Sega Japanese-sized six button pad, I'd probably take the plunge on it. I love that controller. I have the "Sega Club" MK-1937 six button pad, which is identical to the Japanese six button. Only other way to get one in the US besides importing is to get one from a Pioneer LaserActive.

I do not like the US-sized six-button quite as much, since I often play on my side.
[i.imgur.com] (IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/UgrFiRRm.jpg)

The perfect size.
(IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/rt6fx3v.jpg)

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Sep 22 2022, 06:15

New day new post.

Found a disassembly of Phantasy Star II that I've been messing around with. Pretty interesting stuff, and a pretty good reverse engineering effort (labelling things, comments, etc.).

It seems that the English release uses a completely rewritten sound engine compared to the original. The original assembly reads like Z80 assembly that had been translated to Motorola 68K; the new code looks like 68K assembly should. They also changed the drum samples for some reason.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Sep 23 2022, 07:19

If you get/have one, don't want to mod it yourself, and you can do shipping, I'd be happy to mod a (real) mega drive for you.

I've modded three myself; everything from RGB stuff (the bypass, to avoid the composite subcarrier trace capacitively coupling with the blue output and creating jailbars) to TMSS removal and Mega Amp (amplifier fixes for the revisions with bad mixing/pre-amps). What kind of mods are we talking?

My personal system is an early-ish model 1 (genesis type), and is a mess because I learned everything on it before doing it for others. But it works. I've also worked on a model 2 and late model 1 (the one with the amp problem).

Also would be happy to assist if you just have questions or whatnot regarding modding while you're doing it yourself. And I have tons of schematics for it.

I am tempted, but I might just fix the mini, interest rates are going up so my free money to blow on things I won't play enough makes it tricky. Mods can also sorta get expensive, i'd want the video, audio and region mods, as well as the adaptor for master system.

The Mega SG system looks cool for FPGA Megadrive support but its price has shot up recently. For $200 I might buy it as good quality mega drives are going for that price now and it effectively has all the mods I want. If I'd known they would release new genuine controllers I would have held onto my old mega drive to mod, the problem was all the controllers I had back then were broken.

I also have a mini mega drive to fix at some stage. I think I was unhappy with its emulation at the time. I might give it another whirl at some stage.



Also EVGA leaving the market is going to have wider issues for Nvidia graphics cards, having support for different vbios and vbios development was spear headed by them finding ways to work around the restrictions that nvidia kept trying to put onto the cards each generation. They were one of the major players pushing Nvidia to be less locked down for development as well as supporting other OS platforms like linux. Sounds like Nvidia was going out of its way to lock down features and control what board partners could do.



edit: Nvidia is a scumlord, as the 4080 12gb is actually an upbranded 4070, with the 3080 launch price.

The 4080 (12gb) is a 29% price increase for a 13% performance increase over the RTX 3080 (10Ggb) in games that do not support DLSS 3.0.

The real 4080 (16gb) is around 40% faster in raw performance than the 3080 for 71% more money.

The 4090 is +6% price for 70% raw performance over a 3090 ti but the power draw will be insane. Its also unlikely that the 4090 will be available for its launch price, like what happened with the 3090.

This is why they pushed DLSS 3.0 so hard in the marketing. The pricing is fairly BS.

This post has been edited by EsotericSatire: Sep 24 2022, 03:12

I am tempted, but I might just fix the mini, interest rates are going up so my free money to blow on things I won't play enough makes it tricky. Mods can also sorta get expensive, i'd want the video, audio and region mods, as well as the adaptor for master system.

I'd do it for parts + shipping.
But if you want a learning experience it should be doable yourself... I think I did my first one when I was 18 or so. It was a model 1, but the last revision model 1 which internally looks a lot more like a model 2 (lots of surfacemount parts). My personal system is an earlier model 1; traded the first one I modded for CIB Kirby's Adventure and Phantasy Star.

Shipping being the expensive bit probably.
Might already have a mega amp board on hand actually.
Region mod is pretty easy to do, just needs a double-throw switch or two single-throw ones. I'd go so far as to say that one could be done by someone who's never soldered before with a little flux and leaded solder.

S-Video from Model 2's can be tricky; a lot of them don't have the right video encoder chip for it in the US. But I think all the PAL ones have a good encoder chip for that (Sony CXA1145 or CXA1645). My Model 1 is also good in that regard.

RGB is almost trivially easy, especially if you are OK with TTL sync, since it's exposed on the back. Sync signal just needs buffered, since it's an open-collector output, which can be done with a 7408 chip or similar (or just a hex buffer) tapping sync, the +5VDC and ground lines on the A/V connector. For 1VP-P sync with no DC offset, you just add a capacitor and 300 ohm resistor in series on the output from that chip. Since the signal is 75 ohm terminated on 1Vp-p displays, that forms a voltage divider which brings the voltage down to 1V. For TTL sync you don't need either of those.

The Mega SG system looks cool for FPGA Megadrive support but its price has shot up recently. For $200 I might buy it as good quality mega drives are going for that price now and it effectively has all the mods I want. If I'd known they would release new genuine controllers I would have held onto my old mega drive to mod, the problem was all the controllers I had back then were broken.

Mega SG is the 'Analogue' product, right (Like Analogue NT for NES)?

I've had a couple chats with kevtris, who designed it. Pretty cool guy. Met him in person once, too.

I also have a mini mega drive to fix at some stage. I think I was unhappy with its emulation at the time. I might give it another whirl at some stage.

I have a working one I bought solely for the USB gamepads. US model though (Genesis Mini). I kind of want to keep it, but I don't really know what I'll do with it.

Its a pity the Switch ignores the Mini's USB controllers unless I boot linux on it.

Also EVGA leaving the market is going to have wider issues for Nvidia graphics cards, having support for different vbios and vbios development was spear headed by them finding ways to work around the restrictions that nvidia kept trying to put onto the cards each generation. They were one of the major players pushing Nvidia to be less locked down for development as well as supporting other OS platforms like linux. Sounds like Nvidia was going out of its way to lock down features and control what board partners could do.
edit: Nvidia is a scumlord, as the 4080 12gb is actually an upbranded 4070, with the 3080 launch price.

The 4080 (12gb) is a 29% price increase for a 13% performance increase over the RTX 3080 (10Ggb) in games that do not support DLSS 3.0.

The real 4080 (16gb) is around 40% faster in raw performance than the 3080 for 71% more money.

The 4090 is +6% price for 70% raw performance over a 3090 ti but the power draw will be insane. Its also unlikely that the 4090 will be available for its launch price, like what happened with the 3090.

This is why they pushed DLSS 3.0 so hard in the marketing. The pricing is fairly BS.

Extremely BS, you mean.
Nvidia hasn't made a top end card worth its price in a long time.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Sep 24 2022, 07:34

I got my pi4 recall box mini console working on my 4k tv. Looks pretty good at 1080p.
It did take them a few years to get the emulation bugs sorted but now its seems pretty good.

I use a switch running linux as a TV console emulator.

I don't know how high it will go in linux, but it will at least exceed 1080p there. I just don't have a screen bigger than 1920x1200 to test on.

I wonder if mankind will ever make user-friendly repair facilities for general public for tech stuff like tablets, laptops and others...
Some "things" exist, but they are not easy to find, trust, and what they can really do is not obvious enough, thus killing the "user-friendly" part I'm talking about.

Got an ethernet LAN switch, some cat5 cables, and a USB gigabit ethernet adapter today. Now I can record gameplay on switch games relatively well in 720p (without having to get an HDMI capture device... which I will probably get at some point anyway).

Of course, this is only on a hacked switch.

So right now I have an aftermarket dock with a single USB port, hooked to a USB hub chained to a USB audio output and USB ethernet NIC hooked to a LAN switch which is connected to my router. I also have a spare laptop connected to the same LAN switch that I can use for recording stuff.

My setup is getting more convoluted by the minute.

I would use my official dock, which has more ports built-in to start with, but that's in my room right now and my aftermarket dock makes annoying whistling noises when the console is drawing power. Thats inaudible under my TV, but quite audible about a foot from my face when I'm sitting at my PC monitor. So the official dock HAS to be in my room.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Sep 26 2022, 05:16

I was disappointed with Sonic CD, I didn't realize it was released before Sonic 3 in most places, I was trying to workout how they had gone backwards. The level designs were kinda janky reminding me on the Masters System sonic team. I looked it up and they had a bunch of them working on it. Sacrificing polish for interesting mechnics... very much like them. I found the sound track to sound a bit generic.

Yeah, they worked on it. That's part of why there's that musical motif from that one level of Sonic 2 for SMS/Game Gear in the opening number.

Since my Surface Pro 4 is dead (probably the touch screen having ghost inputs, thus even preventing to enter a password on the start screen (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/ph34r.gif) ), while I don't have the financial abilities right now, I tried to look into possible replacements.
First thing was a disappointment that while version numbers and variants have gone up, many numbers in the description have not gone up, and sometimes even down (memory amount, disk amount).
Also there's Windows 11 or sometimes even Windows 10 S involved.
And it still cost a lot even for older versions and versions with things quite inferior (like resolution).

Well I will see how it has changed the day I truly have the financial means to do something.

Since my Surface Pro 4 is dead

Automatic RIP. "If apple can have a high fail rate, so can we...."

They are banned by most IT departments now.

And it still cost a lot even for older versions and versions with things quite inferior (like resolution).

They were subsidized to try and gain market share for quite a while but it did not really work.

This is the experience you get when you buy a surface; they kind of suck.

Your ghost inputs are probably from the battery swelling.

The battery in the surface is a non-replaceable part; even Microsoft won't touch them.

Apple shit is typically easier to repair than a surface.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Sep 27 2022, 03:47

Your ghost inputs are probably from the battery swelling.

This is sorta more common than I expected. Happened to a device I owned, even though I took good care of it, which surprised me. eg wasn't plugged in 24/7

Apple shit is typically easier to repair than a surface.

If you can get the parts that always fail on schedule through grey channels and have a repair dude with the required skills and setup.



The Pi4 emulation is actually pretty great once you fuck around with it long enough to get it working. Got it outputting a fairly decent 1080p with near perfect emulation. I suppose in some games I checked for different systems the issues come up where the original game coding was jank on the OG hardware. Emulation still runs into graphical errors in some of those cases. OG hardware with the right external upscalers can look pretty good but it requires a ton of effort compared to emulation which is pretty mature now.

I think it took a few years before pi4 got the emulation dialed in, and still isn't perfect for things like N64 Golden Eye for example.



edit: AMD 7950x takes the performance crown but runs as hot as a Pentium 4. 95oC as standard running temp and chugging double the power of 5950x.

This post has been edited by EsotericSatire: Sep 27 2022, 10:09

Are you using retroarch?

I kind of low-key hate retroarch. It works for a lot of systems and stuff, sure, but even ignoring that they offer Discord integration and 'achievements' now, it is remarkably easy to break it such that the only way to get it working again is to manually open retroarch.cfg in a text editor.

Also, the 'all players control menu' option doesn't fucking work.

The nice thing is that it does have a shader I can use to apply 3d lookup table color corrections, and that Genesis Plus GX is probably the most accurate mega drive/genesis emulator out there at the moment.

I have a friend on IRC who is working on a different cross platform emulator frontend thingy that I can't wait to recommend to people.

He's also writing a new sega genesis/mega drive emulator in C.

----
For a few "modern" websites, the only way to view them properly on my powerbook is via epiphany (gnome's webkitgtk-based browser). I figured out that I can manually make an empty history database file and mark it as read-only to make epiphany not track history but still keep session cookies (which is how I have firefox/seamonkey configured already, except there I don't have to do hacks to get that behavior).

Now if only user scripts/webextensions and 3d lookup table color correction actually fucking worked.

If you can get the parts that always fail on schedule through grey channels and have a repair dude with the required skills and setup.

I am able to fix apple laptops and some of their other iCrap with just screwdrivers. The surface is made entirely out of adhesives and glass. You have to get grey market parts and a dude with the required skills and setup for Microsoft products, too.

I didn't say Apple was significantly better, just that it was 'better'.

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Sep 27 2022, 17:49

Was looking into alternative twitter clients and came across this gem (which I threw into a machine translator).

(IMG:[i.imgur.com] https://i.imgur.com/P12quMq.png)

So yes, all english-speaking persons are personally responsible for shitty ASCII-centric software and the Japanese 106 key keyboard layout.

Anyway, I managed to get it working despite the lack of any english language documentation for setting it up or making Twitter work in it (since it uses an external plugin for twitter support).

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Sep 27 2022, 22:46

Rofl Intel made their XeSS AI upscaling (similar to DLSS 2) available to work on all cards.

So AMD with XeSS and FSR matches DLSS but without half the silicon real estate devoted to tensor cores.

Its like PhysicX and hair works or whatever that ended up as gimmicks

When I login to "fandom", the button to confirm doesn't get enabled after I write id/pass, probably because of NoScript.
So I edit the html to remove the "disabled" part, and the click actually work.
Well, it bring me to a white page, but once I go back to the fandom page I was visiting, I'm logged in.

Thought: if that process is successful, do they really need whatever javascript crap is involved?

answer:
No. No they do not.

You almost never need javascript for browser-server interactions.

Edit/update:
Fixed a key on my laptop keyboard by dabbing a tiny blob of melted plastic onto one of the clips on the underside of the cap where it had chipped (with my soldering iron).

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Sep 29 2022, 00:04

New day new bump:

Needed to open some PaintTool SAI files (and export them to a standard format like PNG). Found a really nifty little cracking tool for SAI 2 written as a python 2 script.

It wouldn't be especially easy to port to python 3, since it does a lot of stuff with binary strings. But it worked perfectly, even on a linux machine running SAI in wine.

It patches the binary, makes a license.slc file, and makes a backup of the unmodified binary. Quite nice.

It'd be a pain in the ass to write in Python 3, I bet, but it could probably be done more simply in C if I was of a mind to. The program itself isn't big at all (around 94 lines of python, excluding comments and whitespace).

This post has been edited by dragontamer8740: Sep 29 2022, 03:06