Last time I checked, they still did not work right ont eh AVS, weird graphics etc. Havent tried the new firmware yet.

Well, judging by my own tests of Pokemon Yellow, guess not. Kinda Disappointing considering we were hoping for 100% compatibility....

No. Last time I asked support about it, I was told that it was something that wasn't an easy fix.
There doesn't seem to be a lot of interest to get it working.

I can understand not wanting to or having the time to put into a super specific fix like they've stated would have to be for these games, especially the bits about having to track down all known variations to make sure the patches cover the bases for everyone.

Other AVS owners reading this, please forgive me for being somewhat critical, but...  I simply cannot understand how the AVS isn't achieving 100% compatibility.  If an FPGA is truly supposed to be able to electrically replicate all of the original hardware in the system it's mimicing, how is there any failure with games that run on original hardware?  I'm not claiming that programming an FPGA is easy or that I would begin to know or understand the details of how to do so.  But if the FPGA in the AVS was programmed to correctly replicate all the hardware in an original NES in its original configuration with 100% accuracy, it makes zero sense that everything isn't perfect.  This may well be an issue with the NT Mini as well, but that just compounds the issue--if these cores are supposed to be electrically perfect duplications of the original hardware, why is it clearly not working that way?

Either we've been mislead regarding the 100% accuracy of FPGAs in replicating other electrical components or we've been mislead regarding the 100% perfect duplication of the NES' hardware.  Perhaps unknowingly, but clearly there are games that 100% should work right which very obviously don't.  Inquiring minds want to know.

This in actually pretty disappointing to hear, as I had planned on picking up FF7 on NES at some point, and the AVS is currently my main console for playing NES games. Does anyone know if the NT has better compatibility with these? If the AVS COULD fix it, it's possible it's already fixed on the NT?

I'm fairly certain Brian said if anyone wanted to send him copies of the games that don't work, he'd work on getting them working. But buying 15 different copies of pirates and reproductions that 1% of AVS users are going to play isn't really cost effective.

I made brief reference to that in my post, as I recall that discussion and vaguely understand what was being talked about (multiple variations of each exist, he can't afford to buy all copies to test & troubleshoot, etc.).  However, what I'm still confused about (and remains unaddressed) is how the AVS (and similar consoles such as the NT Mini) doesn't have actual, 100% compatibility with everything if the FPGA actually, perfectly replicated all the hardware in the NES in its correct configuration.  What issues exist seem to either stem from the core not being 100% true to the NES' hardware or FPGAs not being able to truly replicate components with 100% accuracy as they're advertised to.

Don't get me wrong, I love my NES and, outside of some issues with the green strip games, I've not had any issues with the system.  However, I'm still curious about how the core or FPGA (or both) could be 100% accurate replications of the NES but there be compatibility issues with cartridges attempting to run on that hardware.

I can only speak for myself, as I have no real affiliation with retroUSB or Brian, so these opinions and thoughts are 100% my own. But I think when he was touting the "100% compatibility" thing it was regarding the normal licensed and unlicensed stuff. As far as pirates, reproductions and homebrews go, he made a real effort to try to get everything working the best he could, but it's impossible to say it will ever be "100% compatible" with everything ever made. Some of those companies use lots of big chips and weird wiring and it's not always built well.

It's probably impossible to copy the NES 100% without knowing how everything will work with every game... that's why things have to be tweaked here and there. It's a quest for perfect hardware emulation, and it's ongoing.

So, as of this moment, clearly the FPGA isn't currently "perfectly replicating all the hardware on the NES."

If it was a cheap clone, I'd be inclined to agree.  This was marketed as a premium device aiming for a near mythical 100% compatibility. The original release was anything but that, and it still hasn't met that goal.  The new pin connector certainly helped, and RetroUSB was upfront and honest about the light gun games not working on HDTV's.  

The only game in my collection at this point that doesn't work on it is FF7.  Other homebrew stuff like Super Russian Roulette, The Legends of Owlia, and Haunted Halloween 1 & 2 work wonderfully. Problem games like Bubble Bobble, Back to the Future, Dragon Warrior, and other green strip games in my collection worked fine.

Sadly, my AVS bricked itself on a run-of-the-mill upgrade from firmware 1.10 to 1.20, so now it's a paperweight. Honestly, bricking is the one thing that I never thought the AVS would do. It's such a simple and straightforward procedure. I'm hoping that support maybe has a .bin file that can help get it back up and running.

I do know someone with an Analogue NT, but it's a pain in the ass to set something up with them and then travel through NY traffic to get it checked out, but I may have to do it just to see if FF7 works on it.
 

Sadly I'm asking the same thing as darkchylde28. Now I don't know anything about the technical side but if the core really is emulating all the hardware, I don't know where these compatibility issues are coming from. It doesn't matter if it's officially licensed or not, if it really is replicating everything then it should be able to play everything that the NES is able to play.

This might help. Rene' from Db Electronics talks about FPGA's vs standard emulation starting at 18 minutes and 30 seconds. I suggest watching the Retro Roundtalbe whenever possible. They bring up a ton of great stuff.




 

If I remember, I'll see if my Pokémon Yellow works on the AVS. It was a one-off done by a smart dude, so it may not have the same issues as the ones most people have. If it does not work I'll send it off to retrousb.

Unfortunately, not all standard licensed & unlicensed stuff has worked.  The vast majority, yes, but the last I recall reading, Tulpa (and perhaps others, it's been a while) was still having lockup issues with his copy of Xeyx.  There have been a few other oddball games here and there that I know have had things patched, but that's the one that stands out in my mind.

Honestly, I don't think any of the FPGA solutions are doing the job as perfectly as they're supposed to and am really curious as to why.  I don't mean that in a "Hey buddy, why's this 'broken,'" kind of way, but moreso wanting to know which component(s) is/are failing/incorrect when these issues arise.  The NES doesn't have any internal layers of traces inside the board (hence the ease of jumper wires), so mapping where every single resistor, capacitor, diode, etc. is, what it connects to, etc. to map everything shouldn't be an issue.  The CPU and PPU have been endlessly deconstructed and reconstructed to improve various desktop emulators over the years, so I have to imagine that the issue lies either there--somewhere in the translation of software emulation of the chips to the hardware level commands programmed into the FPGA or with the FPGA's actual ability to replicate the hardware in question.  With ROMs of the affected games working in software emulators just fine, I would think that regardless of whether cheap boards were used, if all the smaller chips used to regulate the flow of power (since it's normally voltage/power issues with the various crap boards) were modeled exactly correctly by the FPGA there wouldn't/shouldn't be any issues.

I have faith in bunnyboy's ability to have translated everything available online correctly to the FPGA, so my current assumption is leaning more toward FPGA technology not being as 1:1 as advertised.  I know older game systems sometimes had games that did weird things based on "tricks" in the original hardware.  If more poorly/non-standard built boards end up doing the same (requiring higher voltage than what the NES was supposed to provide but was actually electrically capable of providing--something it would seem an FPGA with exact, specific limitations should block), it could easily be a quirk or limitation of the FPGA that's causing all the chaos.  No developer is required to be forthcoming about the specifics about why something is happening, the steps that are being taken to fix it, etc., but with a (premium) niche product offered to a pretty technical community, not doing so can (and in some cases seen on here, does) lead to a lot of guessing, doubt and hard feelings regarding something that had such high billing and glowing endorsements which then stumbled a bit.  "Previous problem game boards attempted to pull more voltage than the NES specs dictate and we had to patch that into the FPGA" is a perfectly reasonable explanation (if true, just spitballing & providing an example) which could/would restore confidence, explain how the issue arose/was missed and shed a little light on what's up versus the general wall of silence that's been observed.  "I don't know but I'd be happy to look into it as carts are available" is a great start, but if/when patches are implemented and the issue either goes away or changes, we're left scratching our heads as to what the problem was.  The carts work just fine in various other systems, so the blame, such as it is, really shouldn't be there.

Please don't take my wall of text as being overly critical, passionate or upset about all this--I'm just honestly curious, have thought a lot about this issue, and can't understand the harm in providing some explanation of what the issue is in these cases.  Laying blame on cheap or outlier/one-off boards (whether true or not) seems like a deflection and a cop out and just goes toward "stirring the pot" for folks who have been (and are getting more, in some cases) upset with the whole thing versus an open dialog intended to foster goodwill and relieve tensions.
 
If it was done on a donor board versus one of the newer, not-quite-right mass produced Chinese boards, that could make all the difference, since the ROM is supposed to work just fine in software emulation.  I imagine it probably also works just fine on a PowerPak or EverDrive, but can't recall anyone ever having mentioned getting their hands on the ROM and then running it on the AVS.  I'll have to see about getting my hands on a copy and giving it a shot on my system.

Do they work on the Nt mini? Was planning on picking up FF7.

Games that are having issues is due to timing. Not because the consle was programmed wrong or inaccurate.

This might help understand the working of a FPGA little better, or at least why its not as simple as just telling the FGPA its an NES and everything is fine after that.

https://embeddedmicro.com/tutoria...

I know Bunny has said that a lot of it is different manufacturing processes for carts coming to light. He has a Xexyz that works every time. Mog sent him one that didn't work, but b7 or b8 firmware fixed it. Mine hasn't worked on any firmware yet (haven't tried 1.20, though.)

Ok, the problem with the Pokemon yellow cart, is that on the new 1.20 firmware the sound is screwed, and on the old firmware you cant save. Ironically, FF7 WORKS on the old beta software, but compatibility got broken again on one of the updates.

I really think its stupid of people to try and blame it on the repros/boards of the games themselves. If it works in my original NES (Which both of them do btw) it should work in the AVS. Period. You cant blame the game cart if it works in the real deal. Hell, Pokemon Yellow works in my clone system as well, which is ironic really, that it works in a cheap clone, but not the AVS.

Don't get me wrong, I love the AVS, but I fail to see how it can call itself a 100% replica of the real hardware and not run these. I dont know what timing has to do with Pokemon Yellow magically working on old firmware but being unable to save, or suddenly getting broken again with a new firmware update. Clearly thats a firmware problem? I know for a fact the firmware broke FF7 when the latest one came out.

I'm still not sure where anyone at Retrousb said it was going to be 100% compatible? If they did are we not sure they were saying that in relation to the regular licensed and unlicensed carts, and not some chinese bootleg?

I'd really have to dig to find anything and am not really inclined to spend that much of my morning that way as I'm not that upset about any of this--just seriously curious as to how it's happening.  With that said, I don't know or think that the phrase "100% compatible" was used, but there was a lot of talk about how the FPGA allowed the AVS to have a 1:1 implementation of the original NES hardware inside of it without actually having to have all of that hardware.  1:1 hardware indicates 100% compatibility by default, as two pieces of electronics (be they NES decks, Sony Walkmans, etc.) should be directly and exactly comparable to one another.  So, if the FPGA in the AVS is actually creating a 1:1, exact, 100% replica/simulation of all the hardware inside the NES, it leaves us laymen scratching our heads when stuff doesn't work right with it.
 
Thank you for this.  It is mostly greek to me (at least upon first scan through), but what it leads me to believe (and if you have the technical expertise to give a thumbs up or thumbs down, please feel free) is that the FPGA doesn't and can't do all components 100% accurately; what I mean by this is resistors, capacitors, etc. will have a certain percentage of variance built in, which would seem to not necessarily be possible to replicate with the FPGA since it would be all digital and stuck with static values.  Even a series of static values wouldn't necessarily be able to replicate the exact "curve" in variance for those components (if that's what's going on, that's just my best guess), just take its best guess stab at it and get close.  To me, that explains how patches can be implemented for certain games and how it breaks others.

Totally made up example:  Resistor N221 is being pushed to X by default configuration but needs to be a Y for Pokemon OMGWTFBBQ to work.  Patch is implemented to push resistor N221 to value Y, but then it's discovered that it breaks Golf, because Golf required a value that's roughly roundable to X to operate properly.

What seems to be happening, based on the reports of the performance of the various beta firmwares is that minor tweaks are being applied universally to get the problem games running again but that ends up breaking other things which were happy with whatever original values just got changed.  If I'm understanding and relating examples that are any way indicative of what's going on, would it be possible to just implement code to the FPGA which scans specifically for the few problem carts which require different timing values and then implements those values once the AVS has booted up, scanned the cart in the slot and identified it?  I know it's been mentioned that leftover space on the FPGA is very limited, so I understand that this might not be possible to implement.  I would guess no since this hasn't seemed to have been done before, but it can't hurt to ask.

I think also the original NES was a little more tolerant of the sloppy construction of bootlegs, and if the manufacturers of those bootlegs got it to work on a random NES, they said, "eh, good enough" and shipped it. Who was going to complain if some NESes barfed on them? It's not like they cared about customer service.

The AVS is a more, ahem, "sensitive" machine owing to the way the FPGA works and those same sloppy bootlegs throw a ton of different variables at it. As KHan said, if Bunnyboy had access to every variation, he could probably get them all to work (at the risk of possibly breaking something else.)

Hmm, I wonder if I should send him my personal Xexyz...

That's why I was thinking of the values of the components I know for a fact have built-in percentage based variances.  If a poorly built pirate/clone cart is hitting at the far edge of that variance (or just past the officially documented variance but actually within what the chip will actually tolerate), I would think the digital "this is the exact value and/or range" status of the virtual components inside of the FPGA could/would get hung up on this.  If that's what's going on, great!  In a sense, anyway.  Great, in that we now know specifically that it's a limitation of the FPGA itself versus bunnyboy accidentally coding for a 300 ohm resistor when it should have been 30 ohm (or such).  I think being able to point out that the handful of compatibility issues are a result of hardware limitations but can still be patched (the latter visible, but only if you read through a lot of threads which angry customers haven't been inclined to do) will go a long way to being able to assuage those upset about those specific issues as well as quiet (silence?) naysayers of the system.

Regarding your personal Xexyz, it might not be a bad idea.  However, if it were pointed out what, if any, specific component is potentially causing the timing issues, you might be able to test the values of said component right there at home.  I don't know if Xexyz has a capacitor on the board (or the odd resistor soldered onto the back somewhere, as some carts have), but if it does, it's possible you could provide the "fix" data without having to part with your cart, even temporarily.

.......

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that the FPGA systems on the market today aren't 100% copies, but rather, they're reverse engineered to function as closely as possible.

People keep saying "sloppy" bootleg copies, yet my board in the bootlegs are pretty much the same looking/build quality as most of my other NES carts. And again, it works on a SOAC NES clone, but not the AVS? IE retro Portable DUO etc? Seems odd to me...

Well, you can't judge it by looking at the circuit board. That's like trying to diagnose a car's engine without popping the hood or starting it. You got to see how it was programmed, etc.

Plenty of original hardware have choked on bootlegs over the years.

If you want Bunny to fix it, send him a copy and return postage. It's probably only going to cost $6 or so.