"Let's make GD ROM emulation happen" Facebook group.

I've spent the last few days reading all 36 pages of this thread, and now I'm finally up to date!))))
Keep up the good work cybdyn and OzOnE!
I look forward to buying a DCIO in the future!

 

Wow, really impressive stuff. Cant wait to see the finished product.

 

Thanks guys.

Really going to make a push to get the prototype built in the next week or two.
I know I've said this before though, it's just something unexpected always seems to happen in between. lol

Once I'm back in the "lab" (should be by the weekend), I'll get and order the parts for the new board.

(again, cybdyn did the bulk of the work on this board, it's his design. Just thought I'd mention that. )

OzOnE.

 

Awesome. Well thanks to both of you. At least with you 2 working together we are making progress unlike Denuan and his project that has stagnated for damn near 2 years now...

 

Great news! Looking forward to the finished product!

 

This get to retail (sold buy youse) you have my money.

i assume it works the same way as the wiikey & Xbox/ps3 equivalents? If so when its ready will every game function 100% or will it be certain games only?

this project is a god send to the DC, with this board installed would free up space inside the case for all sorts of case mods. (Better cooling (silent DC) )

 

Super interested into this. Keeping money for that.

 

Hi, all,

Thanks for your support.

The parts for the DCIO have been ordered, but not shipped quite yet. That's to be expected when ordering close to the Weekend in the UK tbh.
They should arrive in the next day or two though.

I have to repeat that there's a fair bit of coding and debugging to be done yet.
Hopefully, a large chunk of cybdyn's previous code should port over quite nicely (more powerful FPGA and ARM chips on the new board).

(shameless plug)...

I've been having some good project successes recently.
Just got word from my friend in the US that my HDMI output board for consoles is starting to come to life!

This should be working on the N64 and GC quite soon, but I'll have to wait until one of the boards gets shipped over to me to do more testing.
No HDMI output just yet, but it's only been two or three days since the boards were soldered.

Using the HDMI board on the DC will require soldering directly to the DAC chip, which will be a bit of a pain without a custom flex cable or something.
(not impossible with Kynar wire, just difficult for the average modder to do).


So, yep - DCIO and HDMI and 1080p Oculus Rift kits should be a reality in the next few weeks.

I'll of course keep everyone updated on the DCIO project and I'll be posting pics after the boards are soldered etc.

OzOnE.

 

If you have an adapter for hdmi on dc I want to buy/test it as soon as available! I can solder tiny stuff real fine and I was thinking about changing my DC power supply to make room for a vga2hdmi adapter, now a native option would be way better!

CHEERS!

 

I am JUST starting to get into soldering. I fixed a PS1 controller and tried to fix my ye olde NES. I just need to find my flux or order some more. I think I might have accidentally thrown it out...

Anyway HDMI out for Dreamcast would be the BEST thing ever! I already have vga input on my 32 inch 1080p LCD tv. But if this becomes a reality I will need to hone my soldering skills much, much better.

I doubt there would be a way to upscale the image to 720p internally would there? I am guessing there would just not be enough room inside the system for this kind of mod.

 

Hi,

A bit naughty of me mentioning the HDMI already - we weren't going to post too many details as yet, but I couldn't help it.

It'll take a week or so for one of the boards to reach me from the US, but I'll be sending over some test code for my good friend to try with the Gamecube.

Yeah, soldering to the DC's DAC is going to be a pain, but the pin pitch is about as fine as you can solder manually using Kynar wire.

The HDMI chip itself apparently does some clever stuff like frame rate conversion etc.
It probably can't do decent up-scaling though, so you'd have to rely on what your TV can do with the image (most TVs are pretty good now).


Anyway, I don't want to detract from the DCIO thread too much with this stuff.
When we have more details, and have the GC / N64 working, I'll post a new thread on here and gc-forever to keep everyone updated.

In the mean time, here's my crappy old video on my first HDMI experiments on the N64.
Note: this is NOT the new board at all, it's my very shoddy first attempt using a cheap FPGA board from China and a cut up old IDE cable (hence the sparklies. lol)...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCbkDgCIKRQ


Parts for the DCIO have just left Grand Prairie, Texas btw.
Usually very fast shipping to the UK (2-4 days).

OzOnE.

 

Wow, I am really excited for your products.

I have been following this threat since October and have been coming back at least once a week to check for updates.

I just ordered my 2nd DC to have one ready as soon as you guys have your hardware in stock.

It's been a long time since I have been so exited for a new piece of console related hardware. I wish I could understand
more than vague concepts of what you are talking about, but it's enough to win me over onto your side as one of the
first customers.

I hope that you guys continue to make progress, that you have fun while doing so, and that the final products will make
all the effort worth your while!

 

A quick though on how to efficiently upscale:
Input picture -> FFT -> Pad with zeros from 640x480 to 960x720 or 1440x1080-> Gaussian Window -> IFFT

This should give you an "analogical style" upscale. Resolution is enhanced, but there's no more details (obviously). It's very similar to the scaling obtained by projecting the same image on a bigger area.
It should be pretty fast to implement in fpga given FFTs are well-known and efficient especially in 2^n freezed format chunks and you simply apply a precalculated window. It's also applicable to 4:3 and 16:9 quite easily.

[EDIT]

Here's the result of a quick semi-heuristic implementation in python. Not too bad imo.

 

Wow, I am from the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex and Grand Prairie is part of the city area. Nice to know that the parts for this thing come from locally close to me.

 

Since the thread just diverged slightly, I'll add that I'd happily buy a similar device for the Sega Saturn and SegaCD too . SD-based CD emulator boards are a perfect compliment to flashcarts for cartridge-based systems.

 

So did you order them from Mouser, or is it just a complete coincidence?

 

HDMI output you say? I've been trawling for components for that for the last two weeks. Buying an early kit from you sounds like a much better idea than spending 6 months debugging it myself. I don't mind the soldering so let us know (and feel free to start another thread) when you have something.

Are you planning on incorporating sound in the HDMI output?

 

i had a thought about not having to have the average person have to solder to the DC chips weather it be for BIOS or HDMI
what about taking the PS3 no solder flash Bord route and having a chip clamp

quite positive an online fundraiser like indegogo or kickstarter would be more then possible to raise the money
for a custome chip clamp for the dreamcast and other consoles

 

I'd love if someone could find a source for that, but clamps are normally expensive as hell.

 

I've had the worst luck with VGA to HDMI converters. I might wait for this also. Tired of throwing money into a black hole lol