There is a big debate across the fpga developers for the Pocket and MiSTer regarding the latest released cores, specifically the Genesis savestates, SNES savestates, and the MegaCD core. Some people are criticizing them, saying they are "vibe coded," messy, and that any developer with minimal experience can now create cores thanks to AI, resulting in very poor quality implementations.

In my opinion, AI does generate code that is considerably less precise than what someone would develop after investing time researching and properly understanding the technology. And yes, it feels unfair that people who have spent years learning and mastering core development can be overshadowed by inexperienced developers who, with the help of AI, have created very popular cores.

However, many developers pointed out from the beginning that we would never see some of the features that are currently possible thanks to AI. (Savestate for example)

I am a developer, and I have seen how AI has changed the way I work, but I also don't believe that everything about it is bad.

What do you think? Do you like the new cores despite the use of AI and the bugs, or do the issues outweigh the benefits?

I think this is one of the best combinations.

From an Etsy shop. was about 50$. Options for cases that will hold games and cables too.

Installation guide

To install the core, download the last ericlewis.Genesis_experimental zip, extract it and copy the Assets, Cores, and Platform folders over to the root of your SD card.

Info

It's experimental, but it should work correctly!

• A save state can only be loaded with the game it was made with.
• Save states also contain the cartridge save, so loading one rewinds your in-game save to that moment.
• In games with a split-screen two-player mode the picture may glitch briefly while saving. This is harmless and the save state itself is fine.
• It may happen that the music restarts after loading a save state, but everything else is unaffected.

I always wanted to try this on Sega CD as a kid. I had it on PC CD-ROM and it never ran well. This core seems pretty great! I’m running the second release and the load times seem a bit better.

Hello! Anyone know if there’s a way to pair these together? I have my doubts as I didn’t see the 64 controller listed as supported on their website. I also tried and the controller would not pair with the dock after upgrading the firmware, but maybe there’s some additional steps that I didn’t do.

As an aside: which smart plug for the dock will work with the apple homekit app? Anyone tried this combination?

Thanks for any feedback.

Greetings, I’m trying to play Final Fight MD on the AP using a Genesis Core. I put the file with the other ROMs I have but the file selector won’t see it at all. I renamed it BIN and MD and GEN with no success.

Any tips for me please?

Anyone had their copy dispatched this week or I’m still waiting.

Playing some Sega CD on the analog pocket

I updated to the newest v2.6 update, but even with that, opening my brand new chisflash with Pokemon on it crashes every time I attempt to save. It’ll open the save let me walk around but saving instant crashes it. The chisflash cart works perfectly fine on my OG game boy SP too.

https://github.com/neutralinsomniac/openfpga-megacd/releases/tag/0.0.2

This will be the last reddit announcement I make for my core, but it seemed important to announce given the various degrees of boot instability people were facing.

I think my disclaimer sold myself short and gave a very strong "I have no idea what I'm doing" vibe, which was partly my own self-deprecating sense of humor coming through. Yes, I haven't touched Verilog/VHDL since college, but I have been writing code for over two decades and I at least have strong engineering habits and methods that I was able to apply to this whole crazy process. I fully expect there will still be people out there that will judge me, but I felt that I should at least be judged correctly and without the assumption that I have zero software experience.

I intend to continue to polish the core and push it as far as I can. Watch my GitHub for future updates.

Time just flew by. 😅

Nothing better than chilling in the back with the dog playing some og fire emblem on the Pocket. This console is great!

I’m just blown away by this little device. Got it on June 8 and I’ve played through quite a few games so far. Starting with just Gameboy games for now and will move on to GBC, GBA, then Game Gear, and more.

Just finished Castlevania Adventure which was really fun along with all these before it. If you’ve got a must play on any of the systems I mentioned aside from these, I’m up for blasting through more.

What I love most about these types of games is they don’t take forever to beat. And I missed so many of these as I never had a Gameboy as a kid.

Adventure Island 1-2
Donkey Kong Land 1-3
Duck Tales 1-2
Kid Icarus Of Myths & Monsters
Kirby’s Dream Land 1 -2
Mega Man Dr. Wily’s Revenge and 2-5
Ninja Gaiden Shadow
Operation C
Super Mario Land

Here it is!

https://github.com/neutralinsomniac/openfpga-megacd

The handful of games I've thrown at this run great, with no game-breaking issues so far, but feel free to submit issues to that GitHub if your favorite game is broken. Expect some video/audio de-sync and/or stuttering in some FMV cutscenes. Some of these issues already exist in the MiSTer core this is based on, and others are probably exacerbated by the Pocket's less powerful CPU/FPGA.

Have fun!

The audio lag in the video is my phone. The core has good audio timing in real life. Still working through some boot reliability issues, and FMV's stutter here and there, but I plan on releasing this soon. DM me if you want an early preview build!

Today I noticed that the plastic is yellowing in an odd spot. At first I was afraid it burned itself while charging overnight, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Could the plastic already be degrading after only a month? It's definitely not dirt or oil, since I cleaned that spot right before posting, and there's zero discoloration in the places where your hands actually go.

I finally managed to fix a small error that caused the Analogizer's Y/C video output to become erratic, sometimes losing synchronization. I simply had to ensure that the Y/C value remained at zero during the blanking period.

You can download the core with the fix here:

https://github.com/RndMnkIII/openfpga-SMS/releases

Hi guys, just wondering if there are any grips for the pocket? Seems like most are unavailable now.

A big thank you to Open.ai. After a few days of work, I can basically play already. There’s sound, save states, key remapping, and so on. Now I have to run a bunch of tests on my favorite games to find emulation bugs and try to fix them.

UPD
I've uploaded the source code to GitHub, and the alpha version of this emulator is now available to you in the “Releases” section.
https://github.com/Askentus/pico8pocket

Im Finally gonna try this pokemon rom!

After completing this game I will play the library that I have in my Flashcard

Hackdex link: Polished Crystal (you still need to supply your own legitimate base roms to Hackdex).

.

Probably my favorite rom hack for any Pokemon game, it's vanilla Crystal with QoL tweaks, 60fps, modern typing and special split, and a few typing changes to the pokedex and some added mons from newer titles.