13 replies to this topic

[Great Hierophant]

Well, I promised a review of this NES Clone, and now you've got it.

First Impressions:
The unit I received from my eBay seller came very professionally packaged. The box had a glossy finish and instructions on how to hook the device up on the back. While there was no manual the box was refreshingly free of "Engrish." Everything in the box camewrapped in plastic and all the wires were neatly tied with twisties. The silver finish on mine was very stylish but I don't think it will last. The plastic is professionally molded and does not feel cheap like so many Famiclones. Some roughness where the plastic was cut, but nothing too noticeable. The controllers, while small, hare the same impressions as the console unit. The buttons feel responsive without being clicky, and while the D-Pad is raised from the housing, it feels rather solid. The cable to the console is rather thin. The A/V cables are mono only, so you will need a splitter to feed two TV speakers. The Power supply is very small, this device would be ideal for batteries. If you look beneath the lid you can see part of the two PCBs that make up the unit. Could have used more plastic for protection. The cartridge door springs back adequately. The led that light the power button is a beautiful blue, rather than all that red for a change.

Compatibility:
The device does work with NES Controller Pads and Zapper Light Guns, but its a tough fit to get them inside the console's controller ports. It should work with any NES peripheral you throw at it, but as I have stated before you will need two NES Extension Cables to fully connect a Four Score or a Satellite. They can be hard to come by these days. The cartridge connector is something of a tight fit and a bit picky anbout the cartridges it will take. Dirty cartridges will not do well on it. If a cartridge doesn't work, try using it attached to a Game Genie. My Maniac Mansion and Final Fantasy carts would not without a Game Genie, perhaps its a spacing, angle problem. The following games will not work properly with this console:

After Burner (semi-playable, many map tiles not displayed)
Bandit Kings of Ancient China
Castlevania III - Dracula's Curse (hangs when you enter a level)
Gauntlet (Licensed or Unlicensed) (wrong map tiles)
Gemfire
L'Empereur
Laser Invasion (extreme graphics glitches)
Nobunaga's Ambition II
Rad Racer II (wrong map tiles)
Romance of the Three Kingdoms II
Uncharted Waters

Incidentally, these games corrupt the Game Genies' menu on a real NES but not on this console.

Video Accuracy:
The box may look nice, but its what its got under the hood that counts. Except for the above mentioned games, this console reproduces NES graphics as they should look, even the scanline glitches. The palette is somewhat washed out compared to the real NES's, but turning down the contrast helps a lot. Also, this console does have a stripey graphics problem like the NES Top Loader, but to a much lesser degree and it tends to be noticeable only on certain colors like dark gray. Turning down the contrast is a big help here, and I have difficulty noticing it on my 27" TV. Sometimes the colors are inconsistent, instead of one color the color gradually changes during the frame, but this could be dirty controllers.

Camerica's Micro Machines, rather disappointingly does not display the menu screens accurately. That game hits a severe PPU bug that is difficult to emulate with a thorough knolwedge and investigation of the hardware. If you want to know how Micro Machines' menus look on the console, try the ROM in any emulator except the latest Nintendulator binary (the only emulator to run these menus correctly.) However, the racing sequences will work without a problem.

Audio Accuracy:
Amazingly, many of the more advanced tunes play just fine. Those that use the DMC channel generally don't have problems, and the noise and triangle channels generally sound true (but not always.) But the two pulse channels are off. The tones coming from the pulse wave channels sound too simplistic, as if they were coming from an AY-3-8910. This ruins the pleasure of many classic tunes. Interestingly, some tunes are not affected. Sometimes the DMC channel may stutter or unintended static may come from the noise channel. Sometimes some channels get lost in mixing.

Conclusion:
If I had to sum up this console in a word, it would be "inconsistent." If you appreciate accuracy, this product does not live up to its billing as a Front or Top Loading NES replacement. If you prefer something cheap, reliable and easy to set up and store, this may be just what you need. Then again, the cartridge connector may be a bit too flaky for your cartridges. A front loading NES with a new pin connector, however, is a cheaper and much more satisfying option. If the above mentioned problems could be fixed, then this would be a superb product. Compared to other pirate consoles, it is great. Compared to the real thing its like an emulator.

Please feel free to post comments and feedback. I look forward to hearing from others with this same console.

[JB]

Great Hierophant said:

The A/V cables are mono only, so you will need a splitter to feed two TV speakers.  

As I understand things, hooking into the left audio port only gets output to both speakers. Hence the occasional double-labelling of "left/mono".

I'd have to move my NES to double-check, though. Dun feel like it right now.

[Great Hierophant]

Actually, Micro Machines does not exploit a bug but some very strange, complex and undocumented PPU behavior. I don't understand it and I doubt that anyone at Codemasters fully understood it either, and no game is as hard to get working on the basic NES hardware (the mappers don't need to be emulated or cloned in this case.)

[Flojomojo]

I really wanted one of these, until I saw the precarious way the cartridge sits on top of the unit. Ecch. Emulation via Dreamcast for me!

[compacho]

Nice review man. Much appreciated. Glad to know you have previous knowledge in NES hardware and games. Ehh, I didn't expect this to be that great since it is NOAC, though I still might get it just as a show off piece.

Thanks again.

[Great Hierophant]

Tonight I will take some short recordings of some music playing from the console and post them here if I can to show what how this console plays NES music and let others judge for themselves.

This is going to be very low tech recording. I will connect the audio out of the device to the line in of my SB Live!, (using a RCA-1/8" converter). Then I will use the Windows Sound Recorder and press play around the time I think the music will be playing (since I will not be able to hear it). Windows Sound Recorder will only record up to a minute of audio. When I am done I expect to have 8-bit mono 22,050kHz wave files. Then I will use lame to convert the files to MP3s, probably at 64kbps. I will increase the recording quality should these prove insufficient to to justice to the sound.

For comparisons to the originals, use NSFs and a good NES Emulator or NFS player like FCE Ultra/Festalon, NotSoFatso or /VirtuaNES/VirtuaNSF.

[Dones]

Think you could provide us with some pics?

[FujiSkunk]

JB said:

Great Hierophant said:

The A/V cables are mono only, so you will need a splitter to feed two TV speakers.  

As I understand things, hooking into the left audio port only gets output to both speakers. Hence the occasional double-labelling of "left/mono".

It depends on your receiver. While some receivers are intelligent enough to pipe the input through both speakers if only one side is hooked up, other receivers aren't.

[Great Hierophant]

As there is very, very little difference between the two consoles, posting screenshots would be a waste of space in my opinion. Cutting down the contrast will essentially eliminate the washed out color issue.

But I promised sounds, and here they are to the best of my poor ability. See the attached zip file for them. They aren't the best quality but I had to record from my microphone input. I also apologize for the low encoding rate.

Attached Files

•  super_mario_bros.zip   456.03K   399 downloads

[Great Hierophant]

I have noticed a graphics problem. The floor in first stage of Alien Syndrome and the rocks in the first stage of Contra suffer from a rainbow effect in that the tiles on the upper part of the screen are darker than those on the bottom part of the screen. On the real NES the color should be consistent regardless of its location on the CRT (unless the CRT is faulty.)

[compacho]

Thanks for the MP3s. Man, you can easily notice the difference in sound quality. Now you're making me think twice about this thing. Ehh, I'll still get it.

[Great Hierophant]

I have since found out that NES clone displays graphical glitches in The Legend of Zelda when the screens change vertically. Graphical garbage will appear on the left hand side of the screen and stay there until that screen is redrawn. It is very annoying. My copy of Zelda has beautiful contacts, so dust corrputing the graphics cannot be the reason.

Moreover, this console is the same console as the Neo-Fami. The Neo Fami has a compatibility page were it lists which games work correctly and which do not. I have found that several of the Famicom versions of these games are supposed to work fine in a Neo-Fami. (Gauntlet and Rad Racer II had no Famicom version, so their special trick may not work in a Neo Fami. Castlevania III's Famicom version uses very different hardware, but Castlevania III shares the same hardware that the Koei games use, so if they work on a Neo-Fami, it should.)

Has anyone with this console tried any of these games and got them working correctly in either a Neo-Fami (with a pin converter) or the 72-pin FC Game Console USA Version?

[JB]

skunkworx, on Fri Apr 8, 2005 12:55 PM, said:

JB said:

Great Hierophant said:

The A/V cables are mono only, so you will need a splitter to feed two TV speakers. 

As I understand things, hooking into the left audio port only gets output to both speakers. Hence the occasional double-labelling of "left/mono".

It depends on your receiver. While some receivers are intelligent enough to pipe the input through both speakers if only one side is hooked up, other receivers aren't.

I thought it was an actual standard, on both sides.
Ah well.

[Great Hierophant]

Gametech manufactured three Famiclone consoles. Their first is the Famipachi, the second the Neo-Fami and the third the Pocket Fami. It would seem that the Famipachi, with built-in games, seems to be the most compatible Famiclone they make or made. They mention on the translated page they are using an up-to-date chip so that it can play almost all Famicom games. Perhaps this is no better than their newer product, the Neo-Fami. The compatibility page for that product lists relatively few incompatibilities. The Neo-Fami, according to the compatibility page should be able to play all the games that the Yabo FC Game Console USA Version cannot. But their most recent product, the Pocket Fami, suffers from the exact same game compatibility problems that the Yabo FC Game Console USA Version suffers, again according to its compatibility page. It would seem that Gametech is using worse quality NES-on-a-Chips as time goes on, perhaps in an effort to save chip reproduction costs. Or perhaps their recent suppliers of chips are less functional than older suppliers. Anyway, stay far away from any Gametech product or an importer of their products like Yabo.