Low cost Flash Hucard

[thesteve]

ya might have better luck using JP region games, as the PCE has a secondary region lock
unless your PCE has the pin29 mod

[gameofyou]

ya might have better luck using JP region games, as the PCE has a secondary region lock
unless your PCE has the pin29 mod

My AfterBurner II attempts were with a JPN region game.

[mrhaboobi]

i cant believehow quicky you have put this together.. i shudder at the thought of soldering those fine components..  Most impressive.. put me down for one

[esteban]

Holy crap!  I have finally gotten my first commercial game up and running on the flash HuCard!  I downloaded the USA version of Alien Crush, and enabled the "Bit-flipping".  This allows the game to run perfectly on my PC-Engine!
 
Alien Crush is also a 256KByte game, which reinforces my belief that the larger games don't run because I have a couple address lines flipped.
 
 

Remember the single tear running down my cheek a few days ago? Well now it is a gale-force hurricane of tears as you rip through this project faster than I can recycle screenshots. 

[HercTNT]

This is truly amazing stuff. Really nice work!

[grahf]

Oh hell yeah!
Any chance you could test it with Chris's new wave sound generator?
http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=11401.0
That would make my day!

[Nando]

WOW!

[burn_654]

Possibly try removing the header from the file?

Commercial games are going to have a header from the dumping tools used, homebrew likely does not have this.

[gameofyou]

Possibly try removing the header from the file?

Commercial games are going to have a header from the dumping tools used, homebrew likely does not have this.

I think you might be on to something there burn_654 !
 
I have done some further testing.  My address lines are correct as originally routed.  I proved this by having a large game loaded (Soldier Blade) and trying the address lines swaped.  It played music, but the graphics were messed up.  I switched the two address lines back to the original configuration and the game played perfectly!
 
So, I am satisfied that my hardware is 100% correct now, which is a big relief.  But I would still like to figure out why a lot of games won't play.  So far I have successfully run Alien Crush, Devil's Crush, and Soldier Blade.  They were all USA games, so I had to enable BIT-swap in my software to play them on my PC-Engine.  Also I edited each hex file at offset 0x0B, and changed the 0xF0 to an 0x80, like is described in the HuCard pinout documents online (this is a secondary form of region protection).
 
So, I have yet to actually get a PC-Engine game running on my PC-Engine.  I think burn_654 has the right idea about there being unwanted data in the files I am trying.  When I look at the PC-Engine rom files that I have, there are a bunch of zeros up until 200 Hex.  The USA games do not have this large group of zero data.
 
If anyone has any expertise with HuCard files or any insights, I would appreciate the help.
 

[burn_654]

Well, the header is 512 bytes. I'd use PCEToy
(http://www.zophar.net/utilities/tg16aud/pcetoy32.html)
to remove it or windhex's 'Remove SNES header' will do the trick.
(http://www.zophar.net/utilities/hexutil/windhex.html)
PCEToy can also do some of the bit-swapping operations.

It's entirely possible that the games you got working did not have headers, I wouldn't rule it out.
Everything else sounds correct from what I've read - the bit-swapping and the region bit for us games.

Did you try the japanese versions of those respective games? (Alien Crush, Devil's Crush, Soldier Blade)

[gameofyou]

You are a genius, dude.  That was it!  After stripping the stupid header, I was able to play Liquid Kids!!!
 
Ok, I have a little more testing to do with my PC-Engine, and then I am going to ship the proto-card to 'thesteve', where he can test it on multiple systems.  After that, I am going to have production pcbs made, and order all the components.
 
I have come up with a final price of $45 for the flash HuCard.  I know that's a little higher than my original estimations, but there were a couple factors that raised the price:  1) the pcb needs to be a custom thickness (not the standard .062") and 2) the added cost of gold flash on the edge connectors.  At that price, I will still be able to make a little money for my time (both development and assembly), and reinburse some of the development costs.  Also, any money I make will go towards future pcb and component purchases if there seems to be demand for it.
 
We can keep this on the "down-low" until everyone here that wants a card has gotten one.  After that, feel free to post about it wherever you like.
 
I have already started a website for the flash HuCard.  It is just a first draft, but there is software and documents available if anyone wants to take an early look:
http://www.gamingenterprisesinc.com/Flash_HuCard/

Thanks to everyone on this board for their help, and enthusiasm which helped keep me motivated.   
 

[thesteve]

 as to the custom thickness
if you can get plastic sheets the proper thickness to glue to the back to make it right it would be better than having the board made special
having a plastic sheet on the back will help protect the board

[soop]

as to the custom thickness
if you can get plastic sheets the proper thickness to glue to the back to make it right it would be better than having the board made special
having a plastic sheet on the back will help protect the board

smart!

[gameofyou]

as to the custom thickness
if you can get plastic sheets the proper thickness to glue to the back to make it right it would be better than having the board made special
having a plastic sheet on the back will help protect the board

Yeah, that's what I'm doing now for the proto-board.  It is much easier to just have the correct thickness board made.  I intentionally didn't route any traces under the edge connectors.  So it will just be bare fiberglass pcb under the edge connectors.  It will hold up just fine.

[ccovell]

Did you test this out with 3Mbit and 6Mbit hu-card games?  IIRC, they have an odd way of mapping their banks.