The Goal: System Card 4.0

[nodtveidt]

This is something tomatheous and I (and a few others as well) had talked about on IRC awhile back, but never really did anything with. So, I'll outline some of the ideas that we came up with as well as some of my own that I considered afterwards.

THE PLAN:
A new system card, revision 4.0. Designed to play all existing PC Engine/TurboGrafx CDROM software as well as new software built specifically for the new card.

WHAT IT WOULD HAVE:
Switchable rev 1.0, rev 3.0, and Games Express BIOS code + normal RAM
Full ACD support
New 4.0 BIOS, supporting the modern CDROM standard
Onboard 4-channel Vorbis decoder with 8MB buffer and mixer (would all but replace the built-in ADPCM circuit)
tomatheous also suggested an onboard coprocessor, possibly an NEC V810, but this would probably be very difficult to do

Like the original cards, two versions would be available; one for the normal hardware and one for the Duo.

Most of the card would likely be handled with an Actel flash-based FPGA chip.

Any suggestions, comments, criticisms, cash offers for development, etc. are welcome.

[nat]

Since my programming skill level is undoubtedly inadequate to help the project in any significant capacity, I'd be willing to offer to help back the project financially. Although I guess I'd probably need some kind of assurance that some fruit would come of the labor so I'd know I wasn't just blindly dumping money into a black hole.

All that said, it'd be really cool to see some kind of 32-bit CPU on the card that new 4.0 games could utilize.

[Turbo D]

I think that its a great idea! I would definitely buy them from you!

[esteban]

This is a very kool project. One suggestion, though: instead of a Vorbis decoder, use WMA. ;0

[SignOfZeta]

This is a very kool project. One suggestion, though: instead of a Vorbis decoder, use WMA. ;0

Better yet, Real Media!

Anyway, do you really need to make one for the Duo and one for non-Duos? Unless I'm missing something the original reasons for there being "Pro" and "Duo" versions of the original AC (the cost of memory, mainly) have long past, and making two versions of a card now would just increase the price. Am I missing something?

Since an Arcade Card Pro will work in any PCE, it seems like you'd just want to make a card like that.

[nodtveidt]

tomatheous would know better than I would about the possibility of a single design.

I hope esteban was kidding about WMA. It's a proprietary format and Microsoft would throw a shit fit.

nat: I'll probably support the project financially (it's what I do, hehe) so no problem, but if anyone else wants to contribute, it'd be best to wait until there's at least a solid plan, perhaps a prototype or two.

[nat]

Sure, sounds great. You've got my word if you reach that phase I will be more than happy to contribute.

[nat]

As long as I get one of the prototypes after you're done with it. 

[Michael Helgeson]

Youve got my word if it does not take more then 2 years to do,Ill buy one,esp if you trow in free signed copies of Neutopia 3

[chop5]

wow, i would buy one!

[spenoza]

I'm going to add in here that the best system card you can make is one that is fundamentally simple and doesn't add too much extra functionality (at the risk of over-reaching).

That said, it'd be nice to have some expanded battery backup (save) capabilities. Though I suspect it to be near-impossible, save-state capabilities would rock, too.

[nodtveidt]

Save state probably isn't possible, but I don't know for sure. Battery backup was something that crossed my mind (built-in Tennokoe bank, perhaps). Adding too many capabilities wouldn't be a good thing; the original reason for doing a new system card was to standardize CDROM access so new discs would be much easier to produce.

[MissaFX]

This all sounds great:
Switchable rev 1.0, rev 3.0, and Games Express BIOS code + normal RAM
Full ACD support
New 4.0 BIOS, supporting the modern CDROM standard
Onboard 4-channel Vorbis decoder with 8MB buffer and mixer (would all but replace the built-in ADPCM circuit)
Built in Tennokoe Bank

Can you elaborate more on what an onboard coprocessor, possibly an NEC V810 would allow homebrew programmers to do?  Also, like someone else said, couldn't you just make 1 version of this card for all PC-E systems, Duo and non duo?  Or would it actually save you money to make separate versions? 

Is there any way to make a device that takes an internal screenshot and saves it to battery memory on this card or something?  Then you could save your best 10 scores or whatever on it and show them off/view them again?

[nodtveidt]

An onboard coprocessor would give the system a major processing boost, as a lot of tasks could simply be offloaded to the coprocessor, similar to how it's done on the Sega CD. As for a screenshot function...I don't know about that one, the hucard port would have to have video in pins, and I don't think it does...

[MissaFX]

An onboard coprocessor would give the system a major processing boost, as a lot of tasks could simply be offloaded to the coprocessor, similar to how it's done on the Sega CD. As for a screenshot function...I don't know about that one, the hucard port would have to have video in pins, and I don't think it does...

I was thinking of a video ram dump to the card, even if it might be a little cluttered.  Maybe that cannot be done though, I have no idea.

Could a coprocessor be somthing like a mpeg4 video decoder?  This would allow mp4 video to be used in new PC-E games since mp4 can be low bitrate and high quality, it sounds like the perfect format for a single speed cd-rom.