The NES PC2C02 Video Card!

[Brian_Provinciano]

My NES experiment of October 2004 is the bizarro of PC 3D Accelerators! Rather than giving 3D acceleration, the NES PC2C02 Video Card gives a PC NES video acceleration using the original 2C02 Picture Processing Unit (PPU) found in Nintendo Entertainment Systems. It operates just as in the NES, but is controlled by x86 code instead of the original NES 6502.

Imagine an NES game running natively on a Pentium CPU! Imagine the complex game play, collision detection, virtually unlimited program code and RAM, and everything else fast PCs can produce, fueling an NES game! The NES PC2C02 Video Card makes it possible! It gives the ability to create the most unbelievable NES games you could ever imagine.

Just a fun experiment with no real point, but fun none the less.

Check it out: http://bripro.com/low/hardware/nesvidcard/index.php

[davidleeroth]

You're the man. :hail:

[rbudrick]

What in the hell? This seems like a very high potential item. ANy plans for mass production of any kind? Tell me more about it's advantages...

-Rob

[Brian_Provinciano]

Hi! No plans for any mass production, it was just an experiment, but it would indeed have a lot of potential--especially if someone did a PCI version. For one, it allows one to quickly probe the PPU to find any undocumented capabilities. As well, a PC could just emulate the CPU and mappers of NES games, and use this for the graphics. Making a 100% accurate NES CPU emulator (6502) is very easy. Making an accurate PPU emulator isn't quite so. Sure, one could whip up a PPU emulator in a day, but it wouldn't be too accurate. There are so many tricks that were pulled off using the PPU, and for them to be done, one needs to emulate the PPU perfectly.

I just wish I could have had a video card like this back in my 286 in the DOS days, heh!

[TRM]

I linked to your article on my webpage...

I find this to be a very intriguing idea.

[Ed Oscuro]

waiting for this to get /.'D any minute now ;D

(No, I don't read /. more than a few times a year.)

[leonk]

Very nice site..

I was actually thinking of something similar to your dev cart.. except I would have done it differently.

I was thinking of creating a hybrid dev cart with all the different mappers + 2 flash ROMs (1 CHR, 1 PRG) + all required SRAM VRAM. The cart will have a toggle switch on it (to select mapper) and will have a connector on it to connect to the PC for programming.

This way you have a single dev cart that supports A LOT of different boards, and no NES modifications are required. :D

Keep up the great work!

[charitycasegreg]

sorry I dont exactly understand (im dumb i guess), but so what you did is take the board from an nes system and mod it somehow and inserted it where a board would go into your pc, then you can insert an nes game into it and play nes games?

[charitycasegreg]

nm I dont think Im right at all LOL

[leonk]

What he did was remove the video processor chip from an NES and put it into the PC.

Then a regular emulator emulates the mapper and NES CPU and sends the video signal to the processor (on the card he made). The output from this processor is the simple yellow RCA video cable that connects to the TV.

Basically, the PC doesn't need to emulate the NES video sub system (hence 100% accurate).

Personally.. I think it's more cool than practical. The ultimate thing is something similar to his other project where the PC uploads the data to the NES (to special memory RAM carts) and then plays them.

When it comes to NES emulation, believe it or not, even something as simple as the MMC3 is not 100% accurate!

[Jorpho]

Cool indeed. Kinda reminds me of the HardSID (http://www.hardsid.com/).