No, the pins were wired up, you just need to bridge 2 certain pins on the expansion port to get the extra sound channels to work. And I agree with you about clones.
Edit: Yeah, you use a 47k resistor... I forget the pins you have to bridge, though. I'm sure its on Youtube somewhere.
Last edited by JimmyDean; 05-07-2010 at 10:29 PM.
I stand corrected then. (Tricky business.)
My understanding about the NTSC color space issues is that you can come up with better color spaces than those used by many games, but it sounds like it needs some nearly analog circuitry, or at least some complicated stuff.
For the two that weren't paying attention, the feet are removable by design.
I think some people just want to complain...
I love to complain! But anyway, it still looks ugly. Controller ports everywhere, ugly color scheme, this thing solely exists to be laughed at. That's just my personal opinion.
Edit: I changed my title to "hater of all clone systems". I think its pretty funny. Yet I do hate clones with a passion...
Last edited by JimmyDean; 05-07-2010 at 11:34 PM.
The thing that's going to get me is if the sound is spot on. This was the problem with the Yobo system. They passed everything through the same damn channels and it killed the Genesis sound. It will be interesting to see what happens here in that regard.
Which Yobo? FC3 Plus had the best sound on the Genesis side if you ask me.Originally Posted by T2KFreeker
I like how people complain that the controllers suck compared to official ones, then they let you use official ones and they say it makes the system look ugly.
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You just solder the 47k res. (either way, resistors are bi-directional) to the two pins shown in the pic attachment below. The pins are connected to the expansion port on the bottom of the Toaster NES. When it's done, the resistor is nestled between the cartridge tray and the main board. I wrapped mine with electrical tape before soldering to prevent any possibility of shorts from occurring. I do have a spare CIB "Control Deck" toaster NES with this already done, pin connector refurb'd and the lock-out chip disabled, if anyone is too intimidated to DIY and interested.
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I'll never understand the extreme clone hate; it just sounds like elitist nerd shit to me. I get that some people have their panties in a bunch if the audio or compatibility are off a little, but when I have all-in-one system that I can park at my work station to pass the time, or something that my wife and mother-in-law can toy around with, or when I want to give an inexpensive gift to a friend who isn't a hardcore gamer, but used to have one or more of these system when he/she was a kid and would get a kick out of playing a few of those games again, these clones systems are great.
The extremists here are a relatively small cross section of the gaming community. Most don't have stacks of games to the ceiling, so it doesn't matter if a clone won't play a handful of titles, and most don't want to have to deal with multiple (vintage) consoles taking up space either.
I honestly don't have an issue with the way that this console looks, either. Hell, it's still better looking than the N64, IMO, which also had silly little disc feet. And it's probably red like a toy because, well...because it is a toy.
I respect that everyone has their own opinion, but I think some of you need to unclinch.
Last edited by Emperor Megas; 05-10-2010 at 12:11 PM.
I don't think this is the fault of the consoles' libraries. There's three more games in the same "series" as Shadowgate, and two of them on the NES (Deja Vu and Uninvited - I've played Uninvited; if you like Shadowgate, you'll like Uninvited, and it even has at least one subtle in-joke for returning players.) Mario is good and all but other games do interesting things with the run-and-jump formula as well.
Last edited by Ed Oscuro; 05-10-2010 at 08:34 AM.
Indeed. Some people are ultimately just complaining about clones for being clones. Even with 100% perfect accuracy, somebody would be whining about the look of the thing. And yeah, it's as if the Famicom, the NES2, and the original NA SNES aren't ugly as sin... Heck, very few classic consoles were attractive to begin with; I'd allow for the U.S. NES, the Super Famicom/PAL SNES, the PC Engine, Genesis 2 and 3, and that's about all I can think of...
Edit:
Well, I've played Uninvited, and I honestly couldn't see myself buying it. I would buy Shadowgate mainly for nostalgia, to be honest. As for NES platformers, well, yeah, I would imagine that over half of the NES library consists of platformers, but most just suck, especially in the control department.
Last edited by Eyedunno; 05-10-2010 at 12:09 PM.
I'm pretty sure they don't make the 6502 anymore. But hey, if you wanna track down all the components and build yourself one, knock yourself out. Just be aware that it will cost around $50 just for the parts to build a Genesis, assuming you cheat and use an FPGA for the addressing logic.
What you see in these clones IS original hardware, just with a much smaller form factor and sometimes, a few features are stripped. Allow me to elaborate:
-NOAC: As the name suggests, it's the entire NES chipset put onto one chip. Most of these use incorrectly reverse-engineered hardware, leading to the well known sound problems that plague most NOACs, and some games having weird colors. The vast majority of these NOACs also have some hardware functions stripped, leading to broken compatibility with games like Castlevania III. Either that, or the functions are there, but the Famiclone manufacturers were too damn cheap to make use of them, mainly the CIRAM/CE pin on the NES cartridge slot, which is the cause of the broken compatibility with many games. This issue has been rectified in the RetroDuo(I think it's been fixed in the FC Mobile II as well; someone correct me if I'm wrong), but there's obviously something else with the NES hardware that's not implemented properly in the NOAC, which would cause Battletoads to crash on Stage 2.
Before I move on, let me explain the sound problem. First, there's the obvious volume balance problem. On an NES, there are 5 sound channels put out through 2 pins on the CPU. The first pin carries the 2 Square waves and the other pin carries the Triangle wave, White Noise and DPCM channels. On an NOAC, the mixing of these two sound outputs is done within the NOAC, and for the most part, the Square waves are too silent. The Square waves are also the sound channels that are responsible for the off sound in most NOACs, and here's why: each Square wave uses 4 different duties, which are 12.5%, 25%, 50% and 75%. The 50% and 75% duties are backwards on those NOACs, causing anything using the 50% duty to come at 75% and vice-versa, causing sound pitch issues.
-GOAC: This is just a direct replica of the Genesis hardware on a single chip. This was used on the newest Genesis 2 motherboards(revision VA4) and on all Genesis 3s. The clones use either a custom GOAC or one made by TecToy, which is Sega's Brazilian counterpart. The only reason most Geniclones sound so bad is because of the sound circuit being poorly designed. AtGames' Genesis clones, however, don't use GOACs, but a Titan ARM core running one of the worst Genesis emulators ever made. That is not proper hardware.
-Super NES 3-chip layout: Since the Super NES is a complex system, 3 chips are needed to run the hardware, one for sound, one for video, and one for the CPU(the other chips you see are RAM). This is all a hardware implementation of the Super NES(even the sound is more accurate than ZSNES, which has a few noticeable sound flaws). Old versions of the 3-chip layout had a few little bugs in them that caused some graphical issues, but the new ones are perfect aside from broken compatibility with games containing the SA-1 co-processor. That would require completely reverse-engineering the lockout chip in the Super NES, and I'm quite sure the reason Famiclone manufacturers don't do this is to avoid legal trouble with Nintendo.
So, unless AtGames makes a clone(or another company like AtGames), clones will ALWAYS contain the original hardware that's been reverse-engineered and put onto a smaller chip or with the same complexity as the original hardware in the case of Super NES clones(there exists no SNOAC as of yet).
Last edited by Ace; 05-14-2010 at 11:37 PM.
If this is right (and it certainly sounds like you know your stuff), that makes this clone even more appetizing. I probably won't buy one unless the square wave issue is fixed in this new revision though.
As for the Gen, is the AtGames version the one in the FireCore (and perhaps the Radica Plug & Play games)? Those are the ones with which I take issue. If it's merely lower sound quality (as compared to having some sounds wrong or missing), I think I can live with that.
It's not just that, the entire sound emulation is off. A little technical information on the Genesis' sound hardware: it uses 2 sound chips, a Yamaha YM2612 for FM Synthesis(and limited PCM) and a Texas Instruments SN76489 for PSG. The AtGames clones(FireCore, GENCore, GENMobile, RetroGEN, anything with the AtGames name on it, really) not only have poor sound quality, but the sound in general is COMPLETELY OFF. The sound pitch of the YM2612 and SN76489 in the AtGames systems is about 4 times lower than it should be, while the PCM is too high-pitched(but clearer, oddly enough). As if the sound problems aren't bad enough, because of how crappy AtGames' emulator is, a lot of games suffer from graphical glitches. I know this was a huge problem on the Asian AtGames MegaDrive and the European Blaze MegaDrive(this is the worst of all AtGames' hardware), which has been improved somewhat in the American hardware.
The Radica Plug & Play Genesis systems use a GOAC made by Radica. This is why some people have hacked a cartridge slot into their Radica Genesis systems, but it's stripped-down Genesis hardware, as you can't save any data to cartridges that support saves due to some missing functions, you can't play Master System games via a Master System converter as there's no way to switch the GOAC into Master System compatibility mode, and with the hardware setup in the Radica Genesis systems, you can't play games like Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles if you add a cartridge slot. To make the Radica compatible with those cartridges, you need to modify some of the bankswitching hardware on the system, but if you do that, the built-in games become useless. You CAN, if you want to, put the games on a cartridge and put a few switches in the cartridge as explained here: http://devster.monkeeh.com/sega/radi...bankswitch.gif.
All of Radica's Genesis hardware, like the Genesis/NES combo clones(Gen-X, Hyperkin SG/FC Dual Action, Yobo GN Twin), uses a nasty sound circuit that overamplifies the YM2612 and makes the SN76489 inaudible. I haven't come up with a proper fix yet, but I would assume you could replicate the Mono audio circuit of the Genesis Model 1 to improve the sound on all those systems. It's the only reason why some Genesis games have horrible sound on those clones: the YM2612 and SN76489 are perfectly implemented into the GOAC hardware, but the sound circuits are not properly designed, leading to the overamplified YM2612 sound and inaudible SN76489 sound. This is also why some ORIGINAL HARDWARE sounds bad too. There's a particular variant of the Genesis Model 1 and almost every Genesis Model 2s that, due to a really crappy sound circuit used by Sega, causes distortion and a major hissing noise in the background every time some sound comes out of the system.
Last edited by Ace; 05-11-2010 at 11:51 PM.
I have the FC3 Plus and it's quality has been fine. I haven't had issue with any cartridges not playing either.
I would love to see the real deal too, but unfortunately it seems that this item comes out of the same factory as the Fc3. Here is a little more enlightenment on this new "RETRON"..lol:
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So, because it's made in the same factory, it must be the same thing?
Nice logic.
Even if the Retron used the exact same chipset as the FC3, which is doubtful, having S-video, original controller ports and wireless controllers all serve to make the Retron a more attractive deal than the FC3 which sells for more or less the same price.
It should also be said that speculating on a press release doesn't really count as a 'review' of any kind. There is always reason to be cautious when it comes to the capabilities of clone systems, but these limitations never reveal themselves until someone has spent time with the actual hardware.
Last edited by Akito01; 05-13-2010 at 09:31 AM.
I don't see how the FC3 Plus and Retron3 could possibly be from the same factory. Doesn't Hyperkin have a completely different factory from Yobo's?
Are you kidding me? Does anyone even take your reviews seriously? Example, the review you did on the RetroGen talks about how you can "Play Street Fighter II" on the go with ease and yet you don't even test it to prove that the D-Disc that Innex put on the system is horrid. Way to go man.
By the way, as far as I know, the Retron3 is NOT made in the same factory as Yobo's system was and it isn't even the same chip set either.
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