Meg expansion Question??? Can a co-processor be put in a cartridge?

C

Criterionradiohead

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Would it be possible to put a co-processor inside a cartridge to assist the main processor with graphical/audio tasks? If so, and all costs aside mind you, would it be possible in a Neo game?

Just a thought,

Criterionradiohead ;)

[ July 23, 2002: Message edited by: Criterionradiohead ]</p>
 
Atro

Atro

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Possibly yes. Nowadays a 68000 can be reduced to the size of a rom. but that does not guarantee anyone that it's plain possible.

It's more a matter of a board layout than anything else.
 
C

Criterionradiohead

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So just for shits and giggles say it's possible. Could this in fact make it possible for larger meg games with better animation, sound, colors, etc. on the Neo Geo? I know these are REALLY far fetched questions so give your best educated opinion.

Thanks

Criterionradiohead ;)
 
D

doughboy

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I'd guess it's not too hard..

After all, didn't they do it with snes games...Wasn't it called the super fx chip or something??
 
C

Criterionradiohead

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Originally posted by doughboy:
<strong>I'd guess it's not too hard..

After all, didn't they do it with snes games...Wasn't it called the super fx chip or something??</strong><hr></blockquote>

That's sorta what I was thinking of, though I didn't know the Super FX chip was a co-processor (but know that I think of it I don't know what else it would be). Didn't Sega use something like this in a couple of the Genesis games as well?

But anyway if used in a Neo game, could they theoretically use it to make larger games?

Criterionradiohead ;)
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Atro

Atro

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Originally posted by Criterionradiohead:
<strong>

That's sorta what I was thinking of, though I didn't know the Super FX chip was a co-processor (but know that I think of it I don't know what else it would be). Didn't Sega use something like this in a couple of the Genesis games as well?

But anyway if used in a Neo game, could they theoretically use it to make larger games?

Criterionradiohead ;) </strong><hr></blockquote>

YES. Sega did. But only with Virtua Racing have the SVP processor inside of the cart.

But both Sega and Nintendo chips were 3D upgrades, not to boost the capacity of the MEG Storage. :rolleyes:
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RabbitTroop

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I thought the SFX chip was simply a FPU to help with the math involved in creating the 3D world... I guess it is possible to add functionality to the MVS through the cart, but it is probably not likely to happen... and if it did, I am not sure what we could eek out with it...

-Nick
 
evil wasabi

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meg size wouldn't really matter.

they still havent maxed out neo carts.

but yes, they could add shit to the cars to make them more powerful. like genesis and snes.

they can also create an add-on like 32x/sega cd/turbo cd/naomi gd/etc. for it as well.
 
Atro

Atro

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Originally posted by sonic1687:
<strong>meg size wouldn't really matter.

they still havent maxed out neo carts.

but yes, they could add shit to the cars to make them more powerful. like genesis and snes.

they can also create an add-on like 32x/sega cd/turbo cd/naomi gd/etc. for it as well.</strong><hr></blockquote>


Big loss of money and would destroy the nice Aesthetics of the console.
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evil wasabi

evil wasabi

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asthetics.

bwahahaha.

its a flat box with big games.

it doesnt do anything...........

not to mention if it was mvs only you wouldnt even see it.
 
Atro

Atro

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As you wich.

but don't dare to dream to much, they will never do such thing. They don't swim on money like uncle screwge!!! :rolleyes:
 
td741

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From a technical standpoint. Well, okay I'm no hardware guru, what is feasible depends on what you can do through the cart.

For one thing, what lines are available?

Some system have expansion slots that have lines to the CPU, and other subsystems meaning with a little engineering you could upgrade the CPU, Graphics Processors, etc. (The 3D0's M2 [I'm guessing], Amiga Accelerator Cards, etc.) If the cart slots had these in place then you could upgrade some parts of the system fairly easily.

If that option doesn't exist then you need to look at less elegant solutions depending on what you want to do.

-You could add a co-processor in to speed up calculations on effects *but* it makes things more complicated.
-If you want to increase the resolution or replace the graphics chipset and you don't have direct lines to the original chipset. Then you'll need to do something like the 32X. Have video-outs on it. Same thing with sound, and other things.

That said, I don't think that anything's impossible. But is it worth it? I would rather have playmore put in some effort in a backwards compatible upgraded MVS/AES for the time being.
 
J

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Sure you can add a chip to the Neo carts, but it won't do much. It could make things look sorta pretty but it won't let the carts get bigger.

Remember a 16bit Processor system (like the Neo) only has so many data lines (or bits) to address memory (basically know enough places to call data from in memory). So you could add more memory but the Neo could never realize it was there. And the problem is that by putting in a Chip where the ROM's should be, you are then taking up that many addresses worth of memory. What I mean is for the Neo to access that chip and it's functions, it needs to have addresses normally used for ROM's. And that chip would not allow more ROM's to be addressed, so it would be pretty worthless.

You people should really just learn to realize that the Neo has to go in favor of new hardware, there's nothing to be done.

Peace

JHendrix
 
td741

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Sure you can add a chip to the Neo carts, but it won't do much. It could make things look sorta pretty but it won't let the carts get bigger.
<hr></blockquote>

Sure there are techniques to get around that but it slows donw memory access. You'd need some sort of memory controller on the cart and then you can tell the cart to switch banks, etc...

That said... I'd rather they move on to something else. As long as we could get a home version that's 1:1 I'd be happy. :p
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J

JHendrix

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Originally posted by td741:
<strong>

Sure there are techniques to get around that but it slows donw memory access. You'd need some sort of memory controller on the cart and then you can tell the cart to switch banks, etc...

That said... I'd rather they move on to something else. As long as we could get a home version that's 1:1 I'd be happy. :p </strong><hr></blockquote>


Even that wouldn't work because the memory controller wouldn't know where in it's ROM to specify where to go. The Neo just doesn't have enough data lines to do it all unfortuneately.

Peace

JHendrix
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evil wasabi

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the only thing that would do it would be a completely iindependent processor upgrade, etc, like 32x.

but it would be retarted, because its not going to be as good as naomi, which they should have moved to when it came out.....
 
O

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In my opinion the best custom chip that Playmore could develop would be one for real-time data decompression. With it they could use some kind of data compression (5:3 or something like that; bigger compression ratios could create slowdowns) and release bigger games. If that custom chip also includes some kind of encryption to protect the games from piracy, Playmore would have a great deal.
 
td741

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Well, for one thing I suspect that the Neo is already doing some sort of bankswitching to accomodate the larger newer carts. And of course, not all of the memory addresses are allocated to the cart. There's got to be some way to access the joysticks, graphics ram, other processors, etc.

Anyway, the concept is very simple. (Warning, this is just how *I*'d attempt to implement it. Not probably how its done.)

All I/O lines of the cart slot are directly mapped to the memory controller. The memory controller can interpret say 16-bit or 32-bit memory address. One (or multiple addresses) for the cart slot is mapped to a bank number or (simply just an offset)?

When the CPU accesses say memory address FFFF, the mem controller would take that FFFF would direct that to "FFFF" of the currently selected bank or simply calculate that address with the selected offset.

Of course, on bootup you'd need the offset/bank to be set to or some forseable value.

Now that said, I went off and checked to see how it's really done. :)

Hmm... One implementation seems to be a lot easier then mine. :p You select a bank and it opens up a circuit to the appropriate bank. ;)

Anyway, the question wasn't should they do that. It's "is it" feasible. ;)

That said, I'd like new hardware please. ;)
 
Makismo

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In other words, the Neo Geo is a dead system. Just kick the damn machine to do 1 giga. SNK calls it the giga hardware but so far it has missed that number by about 300 megs. I am sure that Playmore could do it. I think that they should listening to everything that we say. After all, we (the ones on this webpage) are the ones who buy most of the home system games. They should post here and ask us what we want. If they say, no, then we can say FUCK YOU. Then they will go down in flames. They need us more than we need them. Think about it. ;)
 
N

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WIERD EXPERIMENT SPOILER ALERT.

Somedya, fi I even get the time, I mnay take up this experiment once again.

the challenge: extra memory for al ower cost.
The answer: A hard drive.

NOTES:
Cartridge has two boards, each mapped to different areas of hardware. Top board, CPu ROM program, and sound sample section to the YM2610.
Bottom PCB: 32 bit wide graphics CHA lines with up to 256 megs of addressable space. FIX rom of 1 meg for text mode. SM1 sound rom of 1 meg.

Abstract: In the tradition of the Henemann's Sluggo unit, program ROM *CAN* be intercepted to use as a controller by using RAM as an emulator, a dual port RAM as it were. The idea being for an internal CPu with its own firmware for its functions. It would control 6 banks of RAM in the following order:

1. Internal cPu scratchpad and stack RAM
2. Neo Geo CPU ROM emulation RAM
3. Neo Geo Sample ROMspace emulation RAM
4. Neo Geo CHA emulation RAM
5. Neo Geo SM1 emulation RAM
6. Neo Geo SFIX emulation RAM

Basically, the cartridge CPU would load up each RAM bank with the proper data, switching on the fly as needed. It wouldnt be so much of a true coprocessor as a master arbitrator.

The first preliminary of this system used an Apple ][ GS with a 1 gig hard drive as the arbitrator. The first set of experiements were geared towards having multiple games on the same cartridge, as a memory test.

hard drive crash sucks :( . had about a month of fun into that idea. Maybe some other time....who knows? Anyone want to hire me for about 2 years to finish up said project? :)
 
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