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Harrison
28th April 2012, 12:50
I finally got hold of:

Super Everdrive - Nintendo SNES
Everdrive 64 - Nintendo 64

The developers site is at http://krikzz.com/

He makes them himself and they are great quality and work really well. We just had a group buy over at Amibay to reduce the cost per unit direct from the developer. It was a great success and the organiser of the group buy is thinking of doing another on this September if any of you are interested.

If you don't know what the Everdrive devices are, they are PCBs that fit standard cartridge shells for each console they are designed for, and they have an SD card slot on the top. You plug them into your console like a normal game cartridge. You copy the game roms onto an SD card and slot it into the Everdrive. Then you just switch the console on, the Everdrive boots up and its menu appears, allowing you to navigate the SD card, pick a game, load it into the Everdrives flash memory, and then the game boots.

Really fast loading and both the SNES and N64 Everdrives I have work really nicely.

The Everdrive's have some nice features.

The SNES one allows game saving to the Everdrive, and you can then copy the game saves from the cards memory into a save game file on the SD card. It has has a customised CIC code allowing multiregion gaming. A DSP chip from a real game card can also be added at a later date to the PCB to offer support for games that use one. There are about 15 games that need one to run, so I'm not bothered about that as I own the originals of most of the good ones.

The N64 one needs a real CIC chip fitted (which the maker can do when you buy). You need the right chip for US and PAL regions, then the card works perfectly with your region's N64. It runs any region game perfectly, as does the SNES version. I've quickly tried some US and JAP games, as well as PAL, and all worked so far. I've read some games don't work but I think it is only a few. It can also load NES games via an emulator. I've not tried this yet, but take a look on the video on the site, as it shows it in action.

I will write more about these later.

The developer is also working on a new version for the Megadrive. The existing MD Everdrive works well, but the new one is even better. I've never owned a real Megadrive (just emulated), so when we have the next group buy it is tempting to get one.

A very in depth look at the N64 version can be found at http://gbatemp.net/topic/316539-everdrive-64-review/

And for game saving, the N64 version looks like it can save all types of game saves to the SD card, other than controller pak game saves, but then you just use a real game save pak as normal. Very nice.

DonAmiga
29th April 2012, 08:41
I got 3 :) MD, SNES and N64 these have been a great buy and I have been very impressed with how good they work. I've been working my way through one of my magazines top 100 games list for each console and getting to sd cards filled up :D I didn't know about the Nes games working so I'll need to take a look. I have been thinking of adding the DSP to the Snes only for getting the experience and some use out of my soldering iron :) as there is straight forward guides out there to follow.

Harrison
29th April 2012, 12:12
For the N64 NES emulation you just need to download the NES emulator file from http://krikzz.com/ and put it into the same directory as your ED64's boot menu file, then add some NES roms to the SD card and enjoy. Apparently the Everdrive was designed to support emulators, but this is currently the only known one. I hope more get released.

DonAmiga
29th April 2012, 18:27
I've just given the Nes emulator a try and I'm not getting the colour right its just off back and white, I'm not sure if its to do with the roms or my tv? but the games play :( I'll try it out on an other tv later. Harrison do you think you could give it a try?



Edit: I've just tried it on my old 1701 monitor and its working looks like my lcd is rubbish, I think I'm going have to invest in one of those GBS8220. :)

Harrison
30th April 2012, 04:27
Sadly you can't use an N64 with the GBS8220, which I found out myslef in the last few days. The GBS8220 needs an RGB input signal, and PAL N64's only output composite and Svideo, so it won't work. By contrast the SNES does output RGB so will work. Also, to get the signal into the GBS8220 for consoles that do support it, you need to use something like a Sync Strike to convert the RGB Scart into a 15pin VGA into the GBS8220. A little fiddly but it does work, and it does create a nice end result.

However, if I had the money spare at the moment I would definitely be considering an XRGB-3 instead, as that is an amazing device and would solve most of my connection issues in one go, plus do the sync cleaning, upscaling and conversion from any input to vga or component out. Plus with its inbuilt scanline generator so an SLG3000 wouldn't be needed either. It's so tempting.

DonAmiga
30th April 2012, 08:21
I seen phipscube mention about the XRGB-3 the other day on Amibay and till then I hadn't heard of it, so have been looking it up and watching some youtube vids and its very impressive and very tempting. I may look into juggling some funds next month for one (we'll see) Why is it always all at once when we want everything? I'm in for Indivision MK2 and Chameleon this month :)