NESHD - a 1080p HDMI mod kit!

[Xalphenos]

Just watched Kev's video. I'm getting even more excited about this. I love how everything is going to be optional. Want the picture to be blocky? you got it. Want it smooth? you got it. Want to crop off the over scan? go for it.

I also love how the audio is going to be handled. The main reason I got an everdrive for the NES is that I wanted to play FDS games in a more convenient way with more resilient media. But the everdrive fds audio has been kind of a let down.

[akaviolence]

From Kevtris:

Here's some example scanline tests from the scanline generator I was working on tonight. I have finished scalers 100% and that is done, so I started on the scanline generators.

http://blog.kevtris.org/blogfiles/hdmi/ ... es/latest/

I ran into a problem which I knew I'd have on 1080p (and PAL modes). That is, each NES scanline requires a non-integer number of scanlines on the HDMI display. Namely at 1080p, each NES scanline needs 4.5 HDMI scanlines.

This means that the height of each subsequent NES scanline alternates 4/5/4/5/4/5 HDMI lines.

To counter this (you can see an example of what this type looks like, see below) I came up with a scan line generator that "free runs" in relation to the NES video, instead of trying to "scanline" each NES line on the HDMI display. The results of this method are in the above /latest/ directory.

There's also a scanline generator that is tied to the actual NES scanlines, but it can look bad (especially on PAL) due to the afore-mentioned problem. Those are here:

http://blog.kevtris.org/blogfiles/hdmi/scanlines/

the filename describes how "Deep" the scanline effect is. 0 = no scanlines at all, FF = maximum.

[akaviolence]

Latest news from Kevtris:

I have finished the FPGA side pretty much of this project now. In the last few days I have added:

* scanline generators (two kinds- NES locked and free run)

* menu! menu now lets you set up all of the video parameters from the controller.

* MMC5 audio (totally new core)
* VRC6 audio (heavily rewrote)
* FDS audio (totally new core)
* N106 audio (some rewriting)
* sunsoft5B audio (some rewriting)
* VRC7 (some rewriting)

* Audio FIR filter (2 stage)

The audio stuff is ported from the FPGA NES project and have been gone over again to fix bugs, update old code and all that. Some of it was early verilog I had written and it was ugly so it got rewritten.

The FPGA resources are now totally used up:

* logic elements: 98%
* pins: 100%
* PLLs: 100%
* multipliers: 2 left
* blockrams: 100%

This means that the scanline generators are going to have to stay as they are but I think it should be fairly usable. I tried a bunch of "NES locked" scanline generator ideas people mentioned in here and on the IRC channel but they all looked pretty bad and noticeable, unfortunately.

Setting the 1080p mode to 3x scanlines (a "scanline" every 3 HDMI lines) which is higher resolution than the NES and then using one of the scalers looks fairly passable. If you want "real" scanlines, then 720p or 480p modes will need to be used. PAL systems will have to use the free run mode most likely since the scaling on them is non-integer due to hardware restrictions between the PPU frame and the HDMI frame.

All expansion audio is implemented and works now. The VRC7 needs some slight tweaking but seems to be pretty close. At the time I implemented this I didn't know about the ADSR control bit so I will add that.

I have each source separate, and relative volumes of all channels are adjustable against each other. I still need to write a boatload of menu code to allow you to adjust all the parameters though (relative volumes) but the hardware side is all done at least.

Each chip and in some cases sub channels are all individually pannable. This includes the original NES channels (all are pannable individually), VRC6 (individually pannable), MMC5 (same), and the others are pannable as a unit. VRC7 has 2 outputs that can be panned individually left/right, each being a set of 3 channels.

There's a FIR filter to cut out most of the aliasing from the audio and works quite decent. Looped noise sounds pretty decent. There's still a tiny bit of aliasing on very very very high frequency squares but this is unavoidable. The only time I could hear it was when I used a program that let me manually poke the sound registers.

I will release another update video soon outlining some of the new features I added in the last week.

[akaviolence]

Video of Kevin putting together the 1st prototype board using stencil and solder paste, his vacuum tool, and his reflow oven.

[akaviolence]

News from Kevtris:

I have put up a video outlining all of the features of the Hi Def NES adapter's video functionality.
I show off the scanlines, stretching, interpolation and scalers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlb0E_jkYts

[akaviolence]

More info from Kevin:
The hdmi mod does not stop people using the analog audio from the NES- it still is there coming out of the CPU and is unaffected. If people want to keep using it (and even powerpak expansion audio or cart audio on famicoms) this will still work as normal.

I just recreate (rather than digitizing) the audio so I have it in digital form. Someone also asked the sample rate. It's 16 bit, 48KHz since this seems to be the "standard" on HDMI. I could emit 96KHz 24 bit but then no one could hear the audio.

[akaviolence]

News from Kevtris:

Well the audio update video has been posted showing off all of the expansion audio capabilities, along with cropping.

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


Enjoy! (yeah the sunsoft 5B was a lot quieter than it should'a been. that's why there is a gain control!)

Going to work on palettes next and flesh out the rest of the menu next.

[akaviolence]

Kevtris and I check out the Hi-Def NES on my 19" lcd tv.
We also test the zapper out and talk about what's going on with the project.

[akaviolence]

This is my first real attempt at putting the pcbs of the Hi-Def NES HDMI kit in to a Nintendo Top Loader.

[akaviolence]

Kev's best update yet!
From Kev:

Here's the 4th update!

Things added since last time:

* DVI Mode
* Screen is centered
* Pixel masking fixed
* Set the relative audio volumes
* Fixed extraneous pixels
* Hot keys were added
* Overclocking
* Palettes!
* Menu info is now correct
* Fixed the powerpak NSF player

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9gUVcU1N-c

Enjoy!

[akaviolence]

I may have found a good solution to getting the hdmi connector to come out the back of the top loader and av famicom!!!

[Xalphenos]

I think you posted the wrong video there.

[akaviolence]

Yeah link was messed up, fixed...
Thanks!

[Xalphenos]

No prob! I like the look on the back much better but I still think I'm going to try to shove this into a front loader once it's released. The front loader will just look better in my entertainment center and I'm not sure if top loading systems will work well in it because of height requirements.

Anyway I'm digging all the update videos. Keep em coming.

[akaviolence]

Latest update vid from Kevin:

Update #5 has been posted. The brightness on the HDMI output is a bit blown out but this is because of the capture card. I didn't spot it until it was rendered and posted. bleh. Every time I capture something it seems to screw it up in a different way.

Anyways, I show a couple games (Duck Maze, Orb 3D, and Micromachines) which apparently gave the nesRGB fits. Also, the flowing palette demo apparently doesn't work either. All four of these are shown.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNkb...ature=youtu.be

Enjoy!