furrtek
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Progress April I - What's cooking ?
🕑 Added 2019-04-19 13:15:50 +0000 UTCTwo main things: audio and CD.
The audio part's vast majority comes from the work of Jotego, who implemented the YM2610 ADPCM channels during these last days. Something I could have never done in time (along with the whole FM part of the chip).
His work on Yamaha chips easily became half of the effort to make this project come true. Now that it's done, looking at his code makes me doubt I would have had enough courage and knowledge to go through it all.
It still requires a bit of work on my side to feed the ADPCM channels using DDR3, and to figure out why some games have music with a glitchy tempo or no music at all.
The CD part is also progressing a lot, as it seems it's the simplest way to play the larger games for now. There are also a few CD exclusive titles that some of you might enjoy.
The video and audio sections of both consoles are basically the same, the memory interface, DMA chip and the addition of the CD drive communication are the real differences.
Right now there's just enough logic to make the top-loading console start up and talk to the simulated CD drive. The 68k can also access the DRAM "virtual cartridge" to CPU-copy graphics and such. No DMA for now.
ElectronAsh shared his PCE CD loading code, which helped a lot fast-forwarding the work which had to be done on the MiSTer side to retrieve CD and CDDA data :)
The next post -might- contain a proper release with HDMI but I can't give a precise deadline on that. I might also post one or two progress reports before that if I bumped into a problem or have something interesting to share.
Anyways, the release post will be a paid one and again, funds will be shared with Jotego specifically for his work on jt10 (percentage tbd, will be disclosed). The rest will be added to the custom-cartridge- test-board piggy bank :)
About support and rewards, I thought about maybe spending a bit of time to actually provide physical rewards for those who are supporting this project above a certain amount. How about "floating" NeoGeo chip dies enclosed in clear resin on a stand, with text engraving stating which chip it is and that 'nickname/real name' supported this project ?
I already have pretty much everything needed so it wouldn't incur much cost and it could be a cool thing to show off or to remember about ;) How many I'll be able to make will just depend on how many dead NeoGeo chips I can gather and how many patrons will be in the corresponding reward tier.
It wouldn't be to incite you to give more, but to actually send a "real" thank you to those who already gave :)
