Analogue Super NT - orders and shipping(Now you're playing with SUPER POWER)

thomasjast said:

Am I the only person not having any issues with the 8bitdo Retro pads? I've been using them for my real SNES while I wait for my Nt to ship and they feel fine. Every time I think I can prove an issue, I swap to a real SNES controller (I have 4 to test with) and it acts the same. D-pad stiffness is different, sure, but I'm not seeing any issues with accidental diagonals.

I also tested out my SNES Classic controllers and the D-pad stiffness is inconsistent (down is much harder than up) but they're still reliable in terms of inputs.

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Like I said on a previous page, try something that depends on doing from a standard direction to a diagonal a lot. A shmup, or a Contra style game.

The range to get a diagonal is waayy too big. But if the game doesn't use diagonals a lot you probably won't notice.

My order page still hasn't been updated. I just tweeted at them since they seem to be manually sending people their shipping info.

Meatwad said:

Jeremy Parish's Super NT review said Rendering Ranger R2 ran fine

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No, I didn't. I said the cartridge slot design wouldn't scratch up expensive carts such as R2. I don't own R2 and was not able to test it. Please don't misquote me.

No shipping confirmation for me either. Order #4500 or so.

Regarding Rendering Ranger R2...

I have a repro of the game (obviously not a real cart - way too expensive) and it works inconsistently with the Super Nt. When firing it up initially, it always crashes after the title screen, but if you re-run the "run cart" option multiple times, eventually it will get into the game and play fine. Seems like some sort of DMA bug perhaps? It's very weird. It's also a strange one to comment on since I'm using a repro rather than a real cart. I'd assume the real cart has the same issue but I cannot say for sure.

tomwhite2004 said:

The level "Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy" on Yoshi's Island would be a good comparison given the problem the SNES Classic had with that level.

Other than that please be sure to run Higan at it default settings (no vsync) so any timing differences between it and the real hardware are apparent.

Thanks!

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The thing is - Higan's default timing sucks for actually playing. Both Higan and the Super Nt have their own methods for playing games at the correct refresh rate but neither is optimal for playing games, I've found. I'll show them, of course. You can disable v-sync on Super Nt just as on Higan to get the correct speed.

My primary goal here is to focus more on actual playability - getting the best experience on a standard flat panel display. The only way I've found to do that with Higan is D3D with exclusive fullscreen. You get occasional audio pops but completely fluid scrolling with no skips - which is the objective here. Who the heck would ever want to play a SNES game with screen tearing or skipped frames?

So those are basically two issues and it's good that both solutions offer perfectly accurate speed options for matching the original refresh rate - and it's better than they each offer a way to get around it and enjoy games with smooth performance.

Does G-Sync help? I remember byuu being enthused by it when it first came out.

Dark1x said:

Any requests for testing? For this Sunday's video, I'm going to draw a comparison between real hardware, the Super Nt, Higan and the SNES Mini (using stock emulator). I have a bunch of tests ready but figured I'd see if anyone wanted to see something specific!

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If you have them:

Pseudo Hires mode in Jurassic Park (semi-transparent dialogue boxes)
Mid-scanline raster effects in Air Strike Patrol (if there is a shadow under the player's plane)
Write to OAM during active display in Uniracers (2 player mode running normally)

I guess those and Speedy were some of the tougher ones that rely on system functionality (or quirks in the case of uniracers). I assume there's no point testing special chip stuff like Star Ocean or Hayazashi Nidan Morita Shogi 2 given they'll be running off the carts and not the NT anyway

sir_crocodile said:

If you have them:

Pseudo Hires mode in Jurassic Park (semi-transparent dialogue boxes)
Mid-scanline raster effects in Air Strike Patrol (if there is a shadow under the player's plane)
Write to OAM during active display in Uniracers (2 player mode running normally)

I guess those and Speedy were some of the tougher ones that rely on system functionality (or quirks in the case of uniracers). I assume there's no point testing special chip stuff like Star Ocean or Hayazashi Nidan Morita Shogi 2 given they'll be running off the carts and not the NT anyway

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I've already got Air Strike Patrol in there and it's super interesting. The appearance of the game on a real SNES does vary from both the Super Nt and Higan, interestingly enough. It's COMPLETELY busted on the SNES Mini and most other emulators I've tried, though (and not just the shadows).

Dark1x said:

The thing is - Higan's default timing sucks for actually playing. Both Higan and the Super Nt have their own methods for playing games at the correct refresh rate but neither is optimal for playing games, I've found. I'll show them, of course. You can disable v-sync on Super Nt just as on Higan to get the correct speed.

My primary goal here is to focus more on actual playability - getting the best experience on a standard flat panel display. The only way I've found to do that with Higan is D3D with exclusive fullscreen. You get occasional audio pops but completely fluid scrolling with no skips - which is the objective here. Who the heck would ever want to play a SNES game with screen tearing or skipped frames?.

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I couldn't agree more and its why I use the Higan core in Retroarch. Dynamic rate control means you can sync the emulation to exactly 60.00hz or whatever your monitors refresh rate is and have no audio pops or video issues as a result. Retroarch is definitely the best way to use Hiagn imho.

I was actually thinking about from a pure timing / accuracy perspective, to see if Higan or the Super NT lose sync over time compared to real hardware when everything runs at 60.08hz.

EDIT: Uniracers is well worth testing. That game uses the same techniques as Air Strike Patrol to (I think) display the non player sprite. I cant imagine that will work on the stock SNES Classic emulator.

Dark1x said:

Regarding Rendering Ranger R2...

I have a repro of the game (obviously not a real cart - way too expensive) and it works inconsistently with the Super Nt. When firing it up initially, it always crashes after the title screen, but if you re-run the "run cart" option multiple times, eventually it will get into the game and play fine. Seems like some sort of DMA bug perhaps? It's very weird. It's also a strange one to comment on since I'm using a repro rather than a real cart. I'd assume the real cart has the same issue but I cannot say for sure.

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What if you use an Everdrive?

Dark1x said:

Any requests for testing? For this Sunday's video, I'm going to draw a comparison between real hardware, the Super Nt, Higan and the SNES Mini (using stock emulator). I have a bunch of tests ready but figured I'd see if anyone wanted to see something specific!

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Looking forward to this video :)

Some games that could be interesting:
Castlevania 3: it has a huge amount of slowdown on real hardware, could be interesting to see an FPS comparison
Doom: SuperFX2 + slowdown (and I know you have it because of the DF retro Doom video :P)
Star Ocean: notoriously hard to emulate due to special chip used for compression. Could trip the SNES mini.

There's not many demos for the SNES, but these two may be of interest, though I haven't tried them on real hardware:
http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=64255
http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=62927

GreenMonkey said:

Like I said on a previous page, try something that depends on doing from a standard direction to a diagonal a lot. A shmup, or a Contra style game.

The range to get a diagonal is waayy too big. But if the game doesn't use diagonals a lot you probably won't notice.

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The range of badness appears to vary. I have a couple of their controllers now and there is definitely a range of mush sensitivity with some being worse than others, even in the same product line. Which isn't a compliment to the manufacturing process. Not saying I'd like it to be all the exact same level of bad, but a lottery is hardly better. And even then the low end of the bad spectrum still isn't great.

It would be nice if reviewers paid more attention to this specific flaw, even though it isn't directly an Analogue product, it is fully endorsed and pre-order linked from their product page. It isn't going to be a problem for some depending on how their genre tastes skew, but it is still a problem.

I never did get a shipping e-mail, but I see that UPS has a package headed this way from NV via ground. Looks like it'll land on Saturday.

GreenMonkey said:

Like I said on a previous page, try something that depends on doing from a standard direction to a diagonal a lot. A shmup, or a Contra style game.

The range to get a diagonal is waayy too big. But if the game doesn't use diagonals a lot you probably won't notice.

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Tried several games with that in mind, including Axelay and cardinal directions/circles in Secret of Mana (which has surprisingly fast movement). Lots of SF2 as well. I'm going to connect it to the PC and use XInput Tester which will display the inputs in real time for a more scientific set of tests. I also have USB adapters for my real SNES controllers so I can compare.

Dark1x said:

I've already got Air Strike Patrol in there and it's super interesting. The appearance of the game on a real SNES does vary from both the Super Nt and Higan, interestingly enough. It's COMPLETELY busted on the SNES Mini and most other emulators I've tried, though (and not just the shadows).

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Huh, surprised byuu hasn't discussed that in the past...unless nobody's noticed.
With regards to the mini not working, is that even with using DarkAkuma's sfrom tool?

tomwhite2004 said:

I couldn't agree more and its why I use the Higan core in Retroarch. Dynamic rate control means you can sync the emulation to exactly 60.00hz or whatever your monitors refresh rate is and have no audio pops or video issues as a result. Retroarch is definitely the best way to use Hiagn imho.

I was actually thinking about from a pure timing / accuracy perspective, to see if Higan or the Super NT lose sync with real hardware over time compared to real hardware when everything runs at 60.08hz.

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Looking forward to VRR tellies so this won't be an issue period anymore

sir_crocodile said:

Huh, surprised byuu hasn't discussed that in the past...unless nobody's noticed.

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He mentioned it in that arstehnica article way back.

"Or consider Air Strike Patrol, where a shadow is drawn under your aircraft. This is done using mid-scanline raster effects, which are extraordinarily resource intensive to emulate. But without the raster effects, your aircraft's shadow will not show up, as you see in the screenshot below. It's easy to overlook, especially if you do not know that it is supposed to be there. But once you actually see it, you realize that it's quite helpful. Your aircraft has the ability to drop bombs, and this shadow acts as a sort of targeting system to determine where they will land.—something that's slightly more difficult without this seemingly minor effect.

It used to be that only the accuracy profile emulated the effect but now those are dropped it works in Higan as standard.

sir_crocodile said:

Looking forward to VRR tellies so this won't be an issue period anymore

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Preach. That's why I'm holding off on upgrading to 4k and hoping my 1080p lasts for a few years yet. I know the second I buy a set they will announce all these features!

tomwhite2004 said:

He mentioned it in that arstehnica article way back.

"Or consider Air Strike Patrol, where a shadow is drawn under your aircraft. This is done using mid-scanline raster effects, which are extraordinarily resource intensive to emulate. But without the raster effects, your aircraft's shadow will not show up, as you see in the screenshot below. It's easy to overlook, especially if you do not know that it is supposed to be there. But once you actually see it, you realize that it's quite helpful. Your aircraft has the ability to drop bombs, and this shadow acts as a sort of targeting system to determine where they will land.—something that's slightly more difficult without this seemingly minor effect.

It used to be that only the accuracy profile emulated the effect but now those are dropped it works in Higan as standard.

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No I expect that, that's why I suggested it as a test. But Dark1x said "The appearance of the game on a real SNES does vary from both the Super Nt and Higan" which is what surprises me.

sir_crocodile said:

No I expect that, that's why I suggested it as a test. But Dark1x said "The appearance of the game on a real SNES does vary from both the Super Nt and Higan" which is what surprises me.

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sorry pal, misread johns quote...and yeah that is surprising to hear of a difference.

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Lakeside said:

I never did get a shipping e-mail, but I see that UPS has a package headed this way from NV via ground. Looks like it'll land on Saturday.

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I have no tracking number :(

sir_crocodile said:

Huh, surprised byuu hasn't discussed that in the past...unless nobody's noticed.
With regards to the mini not working, is that even with using DarkAkuma's sfrom tool?

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Sooo...I've been debating this point and I feel that I'm going to stick with the default emulator included with the Mini while making a note about options for improving compatbility (DA's tool doesn't fix, though).

I can't possibly show every possible permutation so I've had to set some ground rules as far as what's covered here.

Dark1x said:

Sooo...I've been debating this point and I feel that I'm going to stick with the default emulator included with the Mini while making a note about options for improving compatbility (DA's tool doesn't fix, though).

I can't possibly show every possible permutation so I've had to set some ground rules as far as what's covered here.

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It is still the default emulator (The tool just adds a tiny amount of data telling the emulator to treat it differently). The emulator seems to be based off the Wii U SNES VC emulator, which is kind of like pc emulators from 10-15 years ago with a lot of per-game hacks. What DA's tool does is basically inform the emulator in the snes mini "this is a game that needs hack X". I guess ASP was never released on Wii U VC and has nothing on hand to fix the game.

That said I agree with you as that's quite a mouthful to have to explain to people and not really worth the time taken given the mini is not the focus of the piece.

tomwhite2004 said:

EDIT: Uniracers is well worth testing. That game uses the same techniques as Air Strike Patrol to (I think) display the non player sprite. I cant imagine that will work on the stock SNES Classic emulator.

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I actually maintain a sheet that details what does and doesn't work on the SNES Classic stock emulator (Canoe), and where there are issues I try and document what they are. Uniracers is one such game that has issues. The sprite of your opponent is fine until it goes off-screen, at which point the game draws it in the center. I made a video of this in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnCxeXpmZwQ

And yes, Speedy Gonzales has the timing issue with the unpressable switch.

tbyte64 said:

Star Ocean: notoriously hard to emulate due to special chip used for compression. Could trip the SNES mini.

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Star Ocean requires a patch (similar to the one Nintendo made for Street Fight Alpha 2 on Virtual Console, but more complex) to run on the SNES Mini. It's DarkAkuma's patch, but I am the main (only) tester for it, and it's looking good so far.

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The Deep said:

I have no tracking number :(

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This is reeking of the same crap that happened at the HTC Vive launch, no tracking or ship info, just turns up.

JeremyParish said:

No, I didn't. I said the cartridge slot design wouldn't scratch up expensive carts such as R2. I don't own R2 and was not able to test it. Please don't misquote me.

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My mistake, I apologise

DOTDASHDOT said:

This is reeking of the same crap that happened at the HTC Vive launch, no tracking or ship info, just turns up.

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I sent a message on Twitter to Analogue. Hopefully they don't ignore it.

The Deep said:

I sent a message on Twitter to Analogue. Hopefully they don't ignore it.

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I have too, and email.

So I just got my tracking after messaging analogue on twitter and it's being shipped bia UPS?! I'm in Canada and my checkout said DHL.

Wont be getting it until late next week. Wonderful.

mattysaurus said:

Out of curiosity, what issues have you had running your snes jr through ossc? I've been considering getting an ossc for ps1 (when the hd retro adapter comes out) Saturn, and TG16.

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The SNES's slightly-faster-than-normal refresh rate causes some NASTY noise in the HDMI audio. Only way to fix it is to run analog audio and I have no desire to do a very long analog audio run along side my HDMI cable that runs from my retro console shelf to my receiver. Even if I did, getting that analog audio signal to work with the HDMI video would take a lot of extra bullshit that I don't want to do. Hopefully Marqs will inplement some kind of audio interpolation, but right now that HDMI output is useless with the SNES.

It should be fine with those other consoles though, and all you'd need for the PS1 is a SCART cable FYI. Not sure what this retro adapter is that you're talking about.

Where do I go to sign up for the My UPS thing and find my tracking number?

Polyh3dron said:

The SNES's slightly-faster-than-normal refresh rate causes some NASTY noise in the HDMI audio. Only way to fix it is to run analog audio and I have no desire to do a very long analog audio run along side my HDMI cable that runs from my retro console shelf to my receiver. Even if I did, getting that analog audio signal to work with the HDMI video would take a lot of extra bullshit that I don't want to do. Hopefully Marqs will inplement some kind of audio interpolation, but right now that HDMI output is useless with the SNES.

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You're using the newer OSSC revision then with HDMI output, I guess. I have one revision prior to that with analog output only so I didn't realize this was an issue. In my case, my receiver allows you to select which audio source you want to pair with which video source so it's easy to use but I can see issues in some cases.

Haven't gotten an e-mail from Analogue yet, but there is something coming from Nevada tomorrow. Maybe that's my Super NT.

Yeah I also only got my tracking number immediately when I tweeted Analogue about it.

Bah, mine's not arriving until Tuesday. Hoping that's a conservative estimate.

so uh in the meantime anybody got any experience making an x900e accept hdretrovision cables. I can get it to display in black and white with no audio if I remove one of the audio cables...

Dark1x said:

Sooo...I've been debating this point and I feel that I'm going to stick with the default emulator included with the Mini while making a note about options for improving compatbility (DA's tool doesn't fix, though).

I can't possibly show every possible permutation so I've had to set some ground rules as far as what's covered here.

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Any chance you have a SNES multitap and some 4 player games that use it? Seeing the 4 player modes in the Super Bomberman games, Saturday Night Slam Masters and stuff like that would be cool to see if possible.

lasthope106 said:

Haven't gotten an e-mail from Analogue yet, but there is something coming from Nevada tomorrow. Maybe that's my Super NT.

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I am sure it is. I still haven't received any info from them, and their site even doesn't show it as shipped. But, going to My UPS I can see I have a package coming from Vegas, which is definitely it as well.

superNESjoe said:

Where do I go to sign up for the My UPS thing and find my tracking number?

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Been forever since I signed up, but think you just go to the UPS site and make an account. Don't think there is really anything to it. Just make an account, tell them your address, and you'll start getting notifications. I get them the day before and the day of a package arriving. Comes in handy when I know I won't be around and have a UPS store nearby I can tell them to deliver it to instead of having it sit on my porch all day.

Dark1x said:

You're using the newer OSSC revision then with HDMI output, I guess. I have one revision prior to that with analog output only so I didn't realize this was an issue. In my case, my receiver allows you to select which audio source you want to pair with which video source so it's easy to use but I can see issues in some cases.

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Yeah, Marqs' response to this was to recommend I get a dejitter mod done to my SNES, modifying its timing. No thanks.

Clicking on my order status still shows it hasn't even been shipped yet, while myups shows it has shipped. You'd think that super low shipping cost would get decent service.

Order #77xx here and nothing showing up on my UPS deliveries or the Analogue status page yet...I still have faith but I definitely expected to receive an email, a tracking number, really anything by this point.

Dark1x said:

Any requests for testing? For this Sunday's video, I'm going to draw a comparison between real hardware, the Super Nt, Higan and the SNES Mini (using stock emulator). I have a bunch of tests ready but figured I'd see if anyone wanted to see something specific!

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Input lagpls

Yeah, my order status page doesn't show anything right now...

wow people here are really anxious to receive their Super NTs, I must be getting old as while I am looking forward to mine, it doesn't really make a difference whether it's this week or the next, there is so much to play all the time.

Chittagong said:

wow people here are really anxious to receive their Super NTs, I must be getting old as while I am looking forward to mine, it doesn't really make a difference whether it's this week or the next, there is so much to play all the time.

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If you think this is bad, you should see the Canadian Gaming Deals thread. This shit happens for every release. lol

I somehow just learned about this! The SNES is the only older console for which I have 20+ original games. I'm tempted, especially since the price is pretty good. I'll wait for impressions here. Good luck with your deliveries!

Chittagong said:

wow people here are really anxious to receive their Super NTs, I must be getting old as while I am looking forward to mine, it doesn't really make a difference whether it's this week or the next, there is so much to play all the time.

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Well with what they charge for shipping you should expect it quickly.

Fuzzy did yours ship via DHL or UPS? I thought all non-US shipments were via DHL?

Chittagong said:

wow people here are really anxious to receive their Super NTs, I must be getting old as while I am looking forward to mine, it doesn't really make a difference whether it's this week or the next, there is so much to play all the time.

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Are you going to share some epic lifestyle pics when it arrives?

Chittagong said:

wow people here are really anxious to receive their Super NTs, I must be getting old as while I am looking forward to mine, it doesn't really make a difference whether it's this week or the next, there is so much to play all the time.

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I can't speak for the others, but it's peace of mind that it's been sent, and not having tracking is a pain in the arse! Trust me, you wouldn't want an HTC Vive launch! I fought tooth n nail to get mine, or any acknowledgement, just turned up out of the blue, you need to sign for these things remember.

sixteen-bit said:

Are you going to share some epic lifestyle pics when it arrives?

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mos def!

lunarwhale said:

Bah, mine's not arriving until Tuesday. Hoping that's a conservative estimate.

so uh in the meantime anybody got any experience making an x900e accept hdretrovision cables. I can get it to display in black and white with no audio if I remove one of the audio cables...

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You think Tuesday is bad, try NEXT Thursday here...