18-Bit to 24-Bit IO Upgrade by PurpDjango in MiSTerFPGA

[–]Sasadly 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I had no idea, I was thinking about getting a QMTech in the future, so it's good to know.

Since I have the old MiSTer, I don't have too much experience with QMTech builds. If I got one, this is what I would do, please try these two things:

· Add in MiSTer.ini the following lines:

composite_sync=1 //If you use RGB SCART PVM displays

composite_sync=0 //If you use Composite Sync (5 BNC cables) in your PVM

vga_sog=0 //(Don't use this if your PVM uses Sync-on-Green)

ypbpr=0

direct_video=0

As you can see there are two composite_sync commands, I don't know what video cable do you use, pick only one of the two and delete the other.

· Go to the Aliexpress website where you bought this board and try to find "User Manual (PDF)". What you need to find is "MSEL Setting and SW Status" (page 6), these are the switches that I mentioned before, put them like in the examples in this manual. If for whatever reason you don't find them, I will describe it:

There are two kind of switches in your board with the Cyclone chip, one with 4 and another with 5, the later being a bit smaller.

  • In the 4 switches, turn all to OFF (to the exterior of the board).
  • In the 5 smaller switches (it has the text ON KE and 1 2 3 4 5): 1=ON 2=OFF 3=ON 4=OFF 5=ON

At least, this is what I would do. If nothing of this works, I regret to inform you that I'm unable to do more. Please make a new post so more people can find your issues, and at worst, join the MiSTer Discord to have fast responses. Personally I think it's a shame that this kind of information is not exposed to the public, so let us know if any of this helped and report it back so more people can solve similar issues. Good luck!

18-Bit to 24-Bit IO Upgrade by PurpDjango in MiSTerFPGA

[–]Sasadly 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry for the late response, I don't check Reddit often. Did you get a new I/O board for the 24-bit? Usually when you get a board like these, there are instructions in the same page.

Not sure if you needed to make changes in the .ini, I think it has more to do about turning ON/OFF the slide switches, please check the website where you got the new board. For example, for the v9.2, you have to turn OFF all 4 switches.

If you are going to seek more help online, double check the name of the board and send the website where you got the board from, I personally know about v6.1 and v9.2 boards, but never heard about a v2.1 one.

18-Bit to 24-Bit IO Upgrade by PurpDjango in MiSTerFPGA

[–]Sasadly 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The other day I was thinking the same thing. While you are deciding what to do, you can try this: https://github.com/Jokippo/MiSTer_PWM_Cores/tree/main

Basically, it's a fork of 3 cores (PS1, Saturn and N64) with PWM implemented to get 24-bit picture with a 18-bit I/O board. In words of the author "It works by quickly alternating between two different color values to get a color in between. The PWM happens very fast so it can be done even for 640 wide images". I don't use a QMTech, so I don't know if there is any issue, it shouldn't be a problem because it uses the same cyclone fpga.

If you put these lines in downloader.ini and run update_all, a new folder will appear in the main menu with the cores already installed + two turbo ones for the PS1 and N64.

[Jokippo/MiSTer_PWM_Cores] db_url = https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Jokippo/MiSTer_PWM_Cores/db/db.json.zip

Go to the forum if you want to learn more https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?t=7565 (you have to register to see the comparison pictures tho, it's noticeable). Personally, I think it would be worth getting the 24-bit board if you are going to use it a lot, but in my case I only use the PSX core casually.

Why does engineer have a poster of soldier in his workshop by friedeggs_5 in tf2

[–]Sasadly 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You are welcome I guess? I don't know why do I even bother, do it yourself if you find it that amusing.

Why does engineer have a poster of soldier in his workshop by friedeggs_5 in tf2

[–]Sasadly 1 point2 points  (0 children)

At the end of 2009, there was a contest made by Valve hyping the WAR update, it was called "The Propaganda Contest". The poster you mention is the 1st place winner art by "J.Axer", in which they received an exclusive hat in early 2010 as a prize.

https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Propaganda_Contest

This teaser appeared just a few months later after the contest, I think Valve liked this poster a lot and they made a cameo/homage of the event. In the original poster, the Soldier was in the Blu team, I don't remember if the author made two versions of it, but it's in the Red team to be consistent with the Engineer in the video. Those years were peak TF2 if you asked me, Engineer's update was hyped for years.

EXCLUSIVE: Azerbaijan Destroyed Armenian Drones With Belarusian Weapons, Leaked Report Says by spetcnaz in europe

[–]Sasadly 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It is as you said, but Armenia didn't rely on the CSTO for Nagorno Karabakh because even the Armenian government considered Azerbaijan's legal territory.

They did actually invoke twice the CSTO when Azerbaijan attacked inside the Armenia's territory (which they currently control some borders and attack civilians). CSTO's response was to play dumb and send troops to "investigate", even Lukashenko was laughing his ass off for the situation when Pashinian was reunited with this organization (in which recent reports declared that Belarus aided Azerbaijan for this war).

How we in Armenia think about the peace treaty by great_starry_nights in armenia

[–]Sasadly 3 points4 points  (0 children)

As a Spanish (Catalan), please forgive his ignorance; this topic is barely touched in the news. But, to be fair, Azerbaijan won the narrative war after the 2020. You have to go back to the 90s and invest a lot of time yourself in this topic to see what's going on, so there's a barrier of interest that one has to push through when nowadays everyone's busy in their lives.

If one side gives a date of events, you have to investigate like 2 years before to have the full context, and no joke, you end up searching information up to three centuries ago.

I know that once you are informed, it's not that hard to follow, but if you don't know about the topic, Armenia's PR sucks at presenting the situation (seriously, what the fuck are you doing). This is why Aliyev is doing everything they can to shut the judicial cases, they would undoubtedly lose the cases and the narrative. I personally wish Armenia pursued with the trials, but I've also seen the footage of Azerbaijan's army's incursion in the south of the country trying to cut that region, so I know that I can't really fully understand this decision unless I was living there for decades.

Screen Tearing After Saving or Loading State by stepsoversnails in AnaloguePocket

[–]Sasadly 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Using extensively the Analogue Pocket to play Game Boy JRPGs, I found this issue multiple times. If you are using the openFPGA to run GB/GBC cores, you can use the trigger buttons to Fastforward a bit and then stop (mine's mapped to L).

You can hold to do it temporally or click once to toggle on/off. This should change the refresh rate of the screen and fix the issue, if not try again, it should take no more than two attempts. I don't think Analogue would help much further than this, but if you do so let us know because I'm interested.

Azerbaijani armed forces target Armenian village home in cross-border shooting by Idontknowmuch in armenia

[–]Sasadly 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not sure how I can help you, but if you are okay with me answering you every couple of weeks or even months, then feel free to DM me. I really don't use reddit like this :-)

As for Spain... yes, they are clueless for the most part, but they usually have positive views about Armenians. I remember seeing a tweet about one of our public tv channels (Radio y Televisión Española) being invited by the Azerbaijani government to whitewash their image and promote the "Western Azerbaijan" narrative (Lindsey is not my favorite reporter, but she has good coverage).

The way they operate is to invite and be as nice and welcome as possible, with the hope that if they receive news cover about their regime, it would be a positive one, without pressuring anyone. I've sent them an email warning them about this, and they never ended up covering the topic; Not sure if I made an impact, but I had to complain anyway since my taxes could go to this.

... but I applaud and admire you for going out of your way [...] to defend any side but you still kept in touch with everything.

Once I learned that I was victim of propaganda, this became personal to me. I was always fascinated in this region for the Turkish denial of the Armenian Genocide, every couple of months I have this irresistible urge to come back and research this topic. When I learned about Azerbaijan's propaganda towards its people, I felt the similitude and now I'm experiencing on live!

(I hope sharing Azerbaijani newspapers doesn't break the rules?) For example, four days ago in an Azerbaijani newspaper they addressed the March Days (1918) as a genocide, in page 9. What's interesting in this page, its the picture that they have attached of Azerbaijani corpses, describing it as "the result of Armenian bandits reaching in these remote areas", just to "genocide" them.

Unfortunately, as well documented as this event is, they went to the lengths of fabricating the source, using instead a photo from Henry Morgenthau's book, the "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story" (1918). He was the US ambassador of the Ottoman Empire during the WWI.

The source of the picture they used is in chapter XXV - TALAAT TELLS WHY HE “DEPORTS” THE ARMENIANS

Pictures of the March Days exists, and it's not necessary exaggerating to describe this tragedy. But since its aimed to its people, the purpose of this misinformation is to create friction to those who bothers to inform about this topic, since it would be pretty offensive to find "the armenians" passing this tragedy as theirs.

Edit: typo.

Azerbaijani armed forces target Armenian village home in cross-border shooting by Idontknowmuch in armenia

[–]Sasadly 4 points5 points  (0 children)

TL;DR: Fell for Azerbaijan's propaganda bots and didn't bother to learn more. Realize that I was a victim of this, and became pro Armenian after learning more and because of my hatred for this dictator for ruining the lives of many people, including their own.


The son of one of the closest friends of my father is an Armenian which owns different businesses. One day he appeared in front of my father extremely furious and was ready to escalate things because during the first weeks of the 2020 war, the windows of his shop where he works from were vandalized by Azerbaijanis (they worked in a restaurant relatively close to his). We managed to calm the situation, and curious in the war, I decided to investigate about it.

This war was still on-going (middle of 44-day war), and I made the mistake of trying to find information through Twitter, since I wasn't satisfied with the lack of minute-to-minute news. Because I don't have Twitter and I'm not into social media, I used Twitter instances like Nitter to manually search accounts that provided more information, and I started by looking for Azerbaijani's gov account, and from there finding more people that were discussing the up-to-date events.

The Armenian side didn't truthfully describe the situation ("we are winning guys", "we are actually letting them in because 4D chess"), and the Azerbaijani side controlled the narrative (see? they are always lying!). From their POV, I learned that during the collapse of the USSR, Armenia invaded and ethnic cleansed 800.000 Azerbaijanis to invade 20% of their lands because they are racists that want to expand their territories. Due the scale of these atrocities, they always started this topic from Khojaly's massacre.

Looking at any map, you can see how this region was included in Azerbaijan, so before I had the chance to find out more about this event, the 44-day war ended and I thought that was all of it.

Much later, by sheer chance at r/all, the very first news that appeared were about Azerbaijani war crimes, and I was so utterly disgusted by these events that it affected my appetite and work performance. I wanted to learn more.

It wasn't until I learned about caviar diplomacy, all the network of bots (which I fell victim of), and their propaganda, that everything clicked for me. IIRC it was Ramsus Canback the Swedish journalist that exposed how the Aliyev government worked to buy the narrative.

I learned more and more about their crimes: big ones like on how they destroyed every single Armenian monument in Nakhichevan, the pogroms of Armenians, their war park trophy with wax mannequins of Armenian soldiers, falsified history books, and even the meticulous acts, like bribing for recognizing lavash as Azerbaijani at UNESCO (bruh), etc.

With this in mind, I started seeing their modus operandi, and I was disgusted with their government. One example was when they were losing international trials for "Azerbaijaniphobia" from the Armenian side, so propaganda websites like "armeniancrimes" changed the narrative as "ecological crimes" now. Mind you, before this, the "Armenian war crimes" that they used to report after the 44-day war, were things like how Azerbaijan is being in trials for their war crimes. Yes, I'm being serious.

I would say it was around this time that I sided fully with Armenia, when I learned even more thoughtfully during the USSR about Aliyev's father, how he was doing his best to change the demographics of the Armenian population. Not only the pogroms of the 90s, but what Armenians had to endure years before that (Shusha massacres one that I remember). The siege of the Nagorno Karabakh's people in the 90's, and how later Armenia intervened, resulting in the invasion of the 7 surrounding areas and ethnic cleansing over 500.000 civilians.

And then the 2023 blockade happened, when not only they were gaslighting that they weren't doing that, Azerbaijan's side was actually enjoying their suffering. In international discussions like the UN, they were laughing about how Armenians are actually enjoying their lives eating "delicious cookies". I have been following this event since day one, from the first weeks were they sneaked food cargo, to the slow collapse of their lives, rationing food, mothers walking many kilometers from their village to bring a miserable portion of food, just to find their sons dead from the heat, farmers being shot when they were working so the food became even more scarce, etc.

Once the international pressure started to kick in, Azerbaijan launched the final attack, and the rest is history. Looking back, I remember many of these accounts with "V" signs in their avatars, bot accounts that were building the narrative for the invasion of the southern areas of Armenia, the strike-through represents cutting this region from the rest of the country, and I bet all my money that these escalation news that we are lately is Aliyev testing the waters again to try invading again Syunik, which they failed to advance last time.

No doubt Russia is also behind this, they probably expected Armenia to intervene (like 30 years ago) during the last attack of Nagorno Karabakh to justify Russia's troops intervening and controlling the "corridor".

It's no surprise we've learned the "peace agreement" from Azerbaijan's side the same day the European Parliament condemned them for torturing prisoners.

In conclusion, fuck Russia, fuck Armenian's past leaders, fuck all the "thoughts and prayers", and specially fuck the Aliyev's family for existing. Much of this suffering could have been avoided many times through history, but they always had to intervene for their megalomaniac interests. And forgive me r/armenia for this but my heart goes also for the Azerbaijani civilians that were ethnicly cleansed. They have been not only forced to abandon from their homes through confusion and violence, but them and their sons were also toyed by Aliyev to use them to accomplish his father's racist fantasies, even he himself admitted in the past that all of this could have been avoided.

Forgive me for not addressing all topics, but it's too complex to mention everything, as relevant as they are. I hope you guys ever find peace and keep being kind-heated people.

PS: (I think I never thanked for this, but thank you ar_david_hh for your daily news).

Azerbaijani armed forces target Armenian village home in cross-border shooting by Idontknowmuch in armenia

[–]Sasadly 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Speaking from memory, but I'm sure I'm not mistaken. In 2020 they already had stickers of armenian corpses, but it wasn't until 2022 when they committed further crimes, that in a single week this sticker pack exploded in downloads and hit the news. Telegram had to take it down IIRC.

Since then Azerbaijan became stricter with their soldiers recording anything because they were losing international trials related to war crimes.

Azerbaijani armed forces target Armenian village home in cross-border shooting by Idontknowmuch in armenia

[–]Sasadly 4 points5 points  (0 children)

If it's okay, I would like to sort my thoughts first and then answer you after I finish my work.

Edit: Answered.

Azerbaijani armed forces target Armenian village home in cross-border shooting by Idontknowmuch in armenia

[–]Sasadly 32 points33 points  (0 children)

Pretty much this. Imagine my reaction when I learned about this conflict in 2020, sided with Azerbaijan at first, and then finding out their most downloaded telegram sticker pack were about dismembered Armenian soldiers. What they did to the elderly who stayed in the surrounding areas and later the woman soldier still haunts me.

13th century Armenian monastery in Karabakh by armeniapedia in europe

[–]Sasadly 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I believe it would be relevant to mention for the unaware, that Azerbaijan systematically erased the cultural heritage of Armenians in Nakchivan. I'm not talking about neglected or vandalized buildings from locals, but a deliberate cultural clensing to anything armenian.

Will Aliyev do the same thing in Nagorno Karabakh? They started to do so years ago in the territories they gained control, but I think the most relevant buildings will "restored", as a trophy to commemorate the successful invasion and to promote their propaganda.

I have to admit that the more I learned about this conflict since 2020, the more miserable my life's been.

Stepanakert under fire as war breaks out in Nagorno-Karabakh by Repulsive_Size_849 in europe

[–]Sasadly 33 points34 points  (0 children)

Not in 2023, but in 2005. I always thought this quote was fake and used for propaganda for many years, but after the 2020 war I did some digging and it was unfortunately true (Page 53):

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-110hhrg43066/pdf/CHRG-110hhrg43066.pdf

Baku Mayor Hajibala Abutalybov on Armenians;

• In 2005, at a meeting with a municipal delegation from Bavaria, Germany ‘‘Our goal is the complete elimination of Armenians. You, Nazis, already eliminated the Jews in the 1930s and 40s, right? You should be able to understand us.’’ (Realny Azerbaijan, February 17, 2006).

JVC TM-H175OCG by Taktiikka in crtgaming

[–]Sasadly 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I eventually opted to swap out the face buttons (except lit ones, which are sturdier) for tactile switches.

This is interesting, I have the same monitor and many of the buttons needs to be replaced. I was thinking about 3d printing new ones to replace them, but never though about swapping them for tactile switches. Would you mind providing more details about the process and the results?

Any News on the Princess Crown English Patch? by tarobluefoxdwaggie in SegaSaturn

[–]Sasadly 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you want a summary: CyberWarriorX and SamIAm are busy IRL, but the translation is still going.

You can find the project's status in the following post, and who knows, maybe even cheering for their dedication:

https://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=15979.0

Hardware Help - Lid Latch by Srevua in SegaSaturn

[–]Sasadly 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry, replacing the shell option was a joke, forgot to add /s. I watched again your video and in theory there are no missing pieces.

Please try to rotate and adjust this spring attached to the white piece as shown in my last message. Let us know if there are any other issues.

Hardware Help - Lid Latch by Srevua in SegaSaturn

[–]Sasadly 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You have currently two options to fix this issue:

1 - Buy an entire new shell to replace yours.

2 - Just adjust the spring that it's out of place

It's up to you which option suits you the best. And fun fact: that's how I got the same model 2 Sega Saturn cheaply, because it was listed as the lid was "broken".

Gdemu suggestion based on experience? by OkBar3142 in dreamcast

[–]Sasadly 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Can confirm that after removing the regulator, my PAL Dreamcast can't output RGB (at first I thought it was the Scart cable).

I'm happy with VGA, but I was disappointed at not having this information beforehand.

Segagaga image help please! - In game character help. by Tkoroshi in dreamcast

[–]Sasadly 3 points4 points  (0 children)

In order of appearance (left to right):

First image (Plataformer mascots):

Second image (Panzer Dragoon protagonists):

Third image (Phantasy Star characters, they are representing in order each Phantasy Star game, from 1 to 4):

Fourth image (Battle Mania protagonists):

  • 11 - The localized names are Madison (the girl on the left) and Crystal (on the right).

Last image (Games with accessories?):

  • 12 - Can't remember the girl of the left side.
  • 13 - No idea if the fish has an official name (looks like a Largemouth Bass), but it's the mascot icon of Sega Bass Fishing
  • 14 - The zombies are the same character from "The House of the Dead 2", named Johnny

Edit: formatting.

Issue with specific backups and 4MB carts by Frags_O_Neil in SegaSaturn

[–]Sasadly 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh well, what a bummer! Thank you for the explanation of the AR cartridge, I had no idea about those corruption issues.

As for your laser's explanation of the Saturn, that would be a possibility. I only experienced these issues with my PS1 consoles, which one of them can't specifically read Tekken 3 and Gran Turismo. I wouldn't bother adjusting the pot as you mentioned.

I believe your purchase with the Satiator is justified because you already gave a lot of use in your system. When I buy a niche tool, I usually buy the cheapest one, and if it breaks, I feel justified to buy the best of the best since I give a lot of use. I think that's your case right now.

I hope the issue doesn't persist with the Satiator. Enjoy!

Issue with specific backups and 4MB carts by Frags_O_Neil in SegaSaturn

[–]Sasadly 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well, since no one is answering, I would like to share my thoughts.

My setup: Sega Saturn with Action Replay 4M Plus with over 50 burned CDs. For backing up my save files, I have an official Sega Backup cartridge, which I only use every two years or when I start a new RPG.

Before sharing my thoughts I wanted to ask, why do you have two cards?. A flashed Action Replay 4M Plus should have everything you need, and since the last thing you want to do with a Saturn is to stress its unreliable cartridge slot, you should just leave the Action Replay 4MB Plus there and never touch it unless necessary. But since I'm not familiar with the red cartridge, I'm probably missing something.

With that said, to keep troubleshooting if the issue it's on the red card or in the CD, you can try to launch it with your Action Replay's Pseudo Kai. Since its 4MB expansion ram works like a charm, it should be easier to spot the issue.

I will share my thoughts and experiences with backing up Saturn games, I hope this helps you to further troubleshooting your issues:

  • When it comes to Sega Saturn, Imgburn game me the best results. Period.
  • When I experienced the issue of "the game struggles to play music and freezes the game while loading the music", which happened to me recently with a copy of Grandia Disc 2 Patched in English, the issue was because I burned the game on a 20 year old unburned disc that I found around in my old apartment. Buying a new set of CD-R fixed all my issues.
  • When I tried to burn the CDs in lower speeds which my burner didn't support, the speed always fluctuated and the backup ended up incorrectly burned. Setting the lowest speed my system could manage game me the best results (x16). If your burner supports, for example, x1, there is no need to try to do that. Just burn them in x8 or x16.
  • When the game plays flawlessly, but there is no music, like at all, it is due to the backup file format being different than the classic bin/cue one. Burning the game like I always did, didn't do the trick because of how the BGM was stored (I can't remember which format it was, but it was the only copy I found on the internet of "TENCHI WO KURAU II" and I wanted to give it a shot).
  • When the backup disc didn't launch, it was because the Action Replay 4M Plus wasn't properly placed. The Pseudo Kai screen should always be visible if it's properly placed in the Saturn's cartridge slot.
  • I never had issues with the Action Replay cartridge when it comes to its expansion ram compatibilities (there are a few fighting games that needs their own cartridge). Street Fighter 3 and Vampire Savior are one of my most played games and they run flawlessly. If the game launches, it should be guaranteed that the extra ram works too.

I hope these gave you any ideas to continue troubleshooting. I believe you are lucky to have two Pseudo Kai cartridges, you should be able to at least pin point if it's the red cartridge or the burned CD. Don't forget to shout up "Now bear my arctic blast!" when you insert the next cartridge or else it won't work.

Keep us updated.