Thinking About an Everdrive.

[shoggoth80]

So, as the title says, I am considering an Everdrive N8, Famicom format. To put that into perspective...I am in the USA. I own both NES, Famicom, and clone consoles for both consoles. I am buying an AV Famicom here very shortly, on top of what I already own. From my understanding, the AV Famicom has the better video of the bunch. Couple that with the fact that you are can load either system ROM to the cart, and it seems like ti would make the most sense.

Of course, this won't exactly stop me from collecting... but it does seem a mighty convenient way to cram a lot of titles into one cart. Game Genie support seems like a fun plus as well. I have a fair bit of translated, and hack ROMS that are a lot of fun, and as much as I like repros, the flash cart makes more sense from a pure playing standpoint.

Thoughts?

[P]

My thoughts is about the same as yours, flashcarts makes things much easier since you can bring a lot of games with you with just one cart, while it still doesn't stop me from collecting games. Also the fact that it opens up the possibilities of homebrew and hacks/translations is a big deal for me. Game Genie is nice I guess, I still haven't really used it on my Everdrive though.

From my understanding, the AV Famicom has the better video of the bunch. Couple that with the fact that you are can load either system ROM to the cart, and it seems like ti would make the most sense.

It doesn't have better video or anything, it's just that it has AV out of the box without the need for mods (a classic Famicom with AV-mod may have the same quality of video). The reason AV Famicom is popular is because it has AV from the beginning and has NES-style controller ports (it sacrifices the mic though). What do you mean with system ROM? Famicom have no built-in system ROM, it always requires a cartridge to do anything.
Or are you talking about NES system vs Famicom system? In that case yeah there are no technical difference between NTSC NES and Famicom games. PAL games may also work (not all though).

[shoggoth80]

NES vs. Famicom = no discernible difference on the Everdrive. So putting my NES library, Famicom library, and translated Famicom ROMs onto it is possible. It cares not what ROMs are on it, as long as they are system compatible (ie: NTSC). But, given that I only have (several) toaster NES, a Sharp Twin Famicom (in terms of official hardware), and am getting an AV Famicom (convenience of cords, plus controller ports)... to me it makes the most sense to get the Famicom version of the Everdrive.

[L___E___T]

 



I would definitely recommend getting one for hacks alone, and just leave it slotted into the AV Famicom

[Flemishdog]

Getting an everdrive hasn't stopped me collecting Famicom Disk System games, even though it can do those as well. It's a really great way to bring a lot of games over to someones house without the bulk.

[P]

Famicom Disk System support is horrible, I never use my Everdrive for FDS disk images. I use FDSStick for that.
Actually any game that uses expansion audio may be disappointing on the Everdrive. I've seen that unofficial mapper-files have been made that supposedly improves expansion audio emulation for several chips, but I haven't tried any of them.

NES vs. Famicom = no discernible difference on the Everdrive. So putting my NES library, Famicom library, and translated Famicom ROMs onto it is possible. It cares not what ROMs are on it, as long as they are system compatible (ie: NTSC). But, given that I only have (several) toaster NES, a Sharp Twin Famicom (in terms of official hardware), and am getting an AV Famicom (convenience of cords, plus controller ports)... to me it makes the most sense to get the Famicom version of the Everdrive.

I see, yeah that's true.

[mfm]

So, as the title says, I am considering an Everdrive N8, Famicom format. To put that into perspective...I am in the USA. I own both NES, Famicom, and clone consoles for both consoles. I am buying an AV Famicom here very shortly, on top of what I already own. From my understanding, the AV Famicom has the better video of the bunch. Couple that with the fact that you are can load either system ROM to the cart, and it seems like ti would make the most sense.

Of course, this won't exactly stop me from collecting... but it does seem a mighty convenient way to cram a lot of titles into one cart. Game Genie support seems like a fun plus as well. I have a fair bit of translated, and hack ROMS that are a lot of fun, and as much as I like repros, the flash cart makes more sense from a pure playing standpoint.

Thoughts?

I don't agree with the people here because

1) Having too many titles on an a card makes you less inclined to play anything because you have too much choice and any single game is just a worthless file that you downloaded.

2) Everdrive N8 is emulation which has emulation bugs and also some of the more advanced titles work badly or not at all.

It doesn't have better video or anything, it's just that it has AV out of the box without the need for mods (a classic Famicom with AV-mod may have the same quality of video). The reason AV Famicom is popular is because it has AV from the beginning and has NES-style controller ports (it sacrifices the mic though)

It seems AV modded Famicoms usually have jailbars etc so I wouldn't say the AV is the same as on an AV Famicom. Also the controller ports are very convenient so I wouldn't even bother with anything else than an AV Famicom unless you are short of money or sit very close to the TV.

I remember earlier discussions on this forum about AV quality also concluded that AV Famicom has better video than Twin Famicom or AV-modded Famicom.

[P]

2) Everdrive N8 is emulation which has emulation bugs and also some of the more advanced titles work badly or not at all.

It runs on the Famicom so no emuation there. The only emulation in there is the "emulation" of mappers and sound chips and such in the FPGA. FPGA is programmable logic and is quite different from using a processor. As I understand it, it's possible to reproduce hardware in programmable logic 100% accurately in theory. The Everdrive has a way to go though on the sound chips which is why I don't recommend getting an Everdrive for these particular games. The advanced games with glitches you are talking about is probably MMC5 and VRC7 and such mappers which aren't fully implemented yet. Most simple mappers seems to be working correctly (what all these do is generally just to map in more pages of ROM, so they are probably not very hard to reproduce in FPGA compared to MMC5). Which means most games works flawlessly. The advanced games is a work in progress.

It doesn't have better video or anything, it's just that it has AV out of the box without the need for mods (a classic Famicom with AV-mod may have the same quality of video). The reason AV Famicom is popular is because it has AV from the beginning and has NES-style controller ports (it sacrifices the mic though)

It seems AV modded Famicoms usually have jailbars etc so I wouldn't say the AV is the same as on an AV Famicom. Also the controller ports are very convenient so I wouldn't even bother with anything else than an AV Famicom unless you are short of money or sit very close to the TV.

I remember earlier discussions on this forum about AV quality also concluded that AV Famicom has better video than Twin Famicom or AV-modded Famicom.

I don't really know much about it, but they say AV Famicom also have faint jailbars. The quality of the picture of an AV-modded console, depends on the AV-mod that you do.

[chowder]

I own all the models, and the Twin gives the  best video output for me.  The audio mixing is like the AV though, not as good as the original Famicom that I've AV modded, so it's sort of a tie overall   Haven't bothered with any audio mods yet.

I second (3rd?) the FDSStick recommendation, it's the perfect way to play FDS games.  You need a RAM adapter too (the big black cartridge that comes with the FDS, you can usually pick them up as a separate item on eBay or this very forum).

FDSStick:
http://3dscapture.com/fdsstick/

[Yelir]

I have the Famicom and NES EverDrive since I own both systems and need extra carts to test.

I would recommend them hands down anytime! I have only experienced an error where I had to wipe the card and reinstall a previous OS when I took my cart to a gaming meet and then tried to play at home again?  Also, some problems ocurred loading and playing of particular FDS titles, and poor support for enhanced audio.

I actually ramped up my collections with the N8 and Super ED, but now I'm much more picky with what I buy. I would also recommend an alternate grouping to your ROM set. I'm going to branch paths to separate between choice 2P-4P gaming, shmups, RPGs, translations with a save, etc. 

I have always wanted the GameBoy and N64 ED but I would probably wait for someone to trade out. 

[nerdynebraskan]

I'll pile on.

I love my Famicom Everdrive. I'm also an NES/FC collector, but my NES is the top-loading 101 model for reliability. Since my Famicom is also 101 series, it's vastly superior in video and I went with a 60-pin Everdrive.

I've probably played over 200 different games on it, and nearly all of them are identical to using an original cart. The only ones that straight up didn't work were MMC5s, Action 52, some Chinese Famiclone titles, and PAL ROMs that don't work on NTSC consoles anyway. And the audio support isn't very good on exotic mappers like Gimmick's.

I bought mine primarily to enjoy more prototypes, ROM hacks, translations, and other oddball games that I didn't necessarily want to deal with acquiring repros of. And it's definitely a convenient piece. My collector/gamer buddies were having a game night at a friend's house. I just packed up my Everdrive and my spare AV Famicom, and boom, we had the whole NES/FC library at our fingertips for the night.

The positives vastly outweigh the negatives. You should buy one. I'm already looking forward to having Everdrives for my other favorite systems.

[fcgamer]

I also have an Everdrive, I had requested it for Christmas one year so that I could run a hellish Castlevania 3 (NES) hack I was making without making a repro of something that was incomplete.  It works like a champ.

With that said, I barely use the Everdrive.  I'd rather just run the original carts, oddly.

[aitsu124]

My thoughts is about the same as yours, flashcarts makes things much easier since you can bring a lot of games with you with just one cart, while it still doesn't stop me from collecting games. Also the fact that it opens up the possibilities of homebrew and hacks/translations is a big deal for me. Game Genie is nice I guess, I still haven't really used it on my Everdrive though.

From my understanding, the AV Famicom has the better video of the bunch. Couple that with the fact that you are can load either system ROM to the cart, and it seems like ti would make the most sense.

It doesn't have better video or anything, it's just that it has AV out of the box without the need for mods (a classic Famicom with AV-mod may have the same quality of video). The reason AV Famicom is popular is because it has AV from the beginning and has NES-style controller ports (it sacrifices the mic though). What do you mean with system ROM? Famicom have no built-in system ROM, it always requires a cartridge to do anything.
Or are you talking about NES system vs Famicom system? In that case yeah there are no technical difference between NTSC NES and Famicom games. PAL games may also work (not all though).

The AV Famicom does have the best video quality, but only slightly better than the toaster NES, as jailbars are still very vaguely visible on the latter. Since the Everdrive is pretty expensive, and doesn't have great FDS support, I'd recommend stick to collecting. Unless, that is, there are some very rare cartridge games that you'd like to put on them or you're making hacks and want to play them on real hardware. And in the latter situation, you might want to try to get repros anyway, unless you really can't.

[P]

It seems everyone just says what they want here about the video quality.

The Everdrive is quite cheap for what it is IMO. Other flashcarts are much more expensive and it's not worse than those either. Buy a few repros and you will pay the same amount in no time.

Don't ever expect the Everdrive to handle FDS, that would need a button or something for handling the disk swapping, and perfect sound chip emulation of course. It's for cartridge ROMs first and foremost.

[shoggoth80]

Pretty much my thoughts too. For the amount of cart ROMs I can put on there, it's worth it. The fact that it can support FDS to some degree is interesting though, and I do have a couple translations that would be cool to play on a screen bigger than my computer. Lol.