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Building a Retro NES PC: Part 4 – How to Teardown a NES

admin — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 18:01:43 +0000

Next step in our NES PC build, test the motherboard, and take apart the NES. This video will show you how to tear down the Nintendo Entertainment System in order to clean it out for a PC build. Lots more in the video

Easy Way to Remove Automotive Window Tint

admin — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 04:30:43 +0000

Don’t Waste your time or money. I’ll show you the easiest, fastest, and possibly the cheapest way to remove window tint.

Building a RETRO NES PC: Part 3 Motherboard Closer Look

admin — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:12:28 +0000

This time, we will be cracking open the low power brazos motherboard featuring the AMD E-350 cpu and seeing how we can start to cram all these components into a small NES console.

See Part 2 Here

Building a NES Gaming PC: Part II – Planning and PSUs

admin — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 07:27:32 +0000

Part II in my adventure building a PC out of an original NES console. I have done this in the past, but wanted to try a new and more powerful, yet lower power option. I start to dive into the planning process for the new build, I discuss initial core components like the Power Supply and the Motherboard choices.

Parts Shown in this video:
-Original NES Console
-Pico PSU 90 XLP
-Zotac Fusion350-a-e

See Part 1 Here

See Part 3 Here

Building a Retro NES PC V2.0 – Part I & Introduction

admin — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 06:24:22 +0000

I built my first Nintendo PC back in 2008, dubbed the Stealth NES Retro Gaming PC (see here). I sold that unit long ago, and the bug has bitten me again. I have decided to rebuild another NES PC that will serve as not only a retro gaming unit, but also my main HTPC. Technology has advanced quite a bit since 2008, and I should be able to build a very low power, low heat output machine that can confortably live in my living room in all its “8-bit” glory.

Some of the same elements used in the 2008 build will remain, a clean stock look, with emphasis on being “stealth” however I am not going for an all out approach to looking exactly like a stock NES unit. My last NES PC build was entirely indistinguishable from a stock NES, however I will make exception this time around by working in a HDMI port somewhere on the machine. (still need to work the details out).

I intend to take my time and make no mistakes on this build. It may take a few months, it may take a year. I plan on releasing sequential videos on how this build is taking place and how I do it.

Here’s part one: Overview of the Stock NES and cleaning.

See Part Two Here.

New Self Web Hosting Server for exoid.com

admin — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 06:03:01 +0000

Due to some issues exoid.com has been having with spam, etc… old code, we have decided to start fresh. New WordPress Installation, New forums, everything has been wiped clean. You are now using a custom web server built from the ground up by yours truly. Hopefully this custom webserver segregated from shared hosting and security risks will be more resilient to attacks, spamming, etc… not to mention it should be much quicker! give it a shot. let me know what you think.

Galaxy Nexus Screen Resolution Comparison

admin — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:39:12 +0000

Here is a comparison of the new Samsung Galaxy Nexus resolution as it compares to other popular smartphones.

As you can see, the Galaxy Nexus with it’s full 720p screen (1280x720p) positively dwarves the rest of the handhelds, the iphone4 resolution is the only thing that comes close at 640×960, the 540×960 qHD android standard comes after, the common 800×480 android resolution follows and taking up the rear, the original iphone (and original android devices) at 320×480.

Next Gen Handheld Screen Resolutions

admin — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 21:16:43 +0000

The next generation of handheld gaming is upon us. The Nintendo 3DS is already on the shelves in Japan and will be hitting the US on March 27th. Sony’s new handheld code named “NGP” is on the horizon as well, although won’t be here until Q4 (Fourth Quarter) of this year (2011). I have created some mockups to show how the resolution compares between devices. First up is the Nintendo 3DS compared to its predecessor:

Unfortunately resolution has not increased as dramatically as initially expected. Since the 3DS is featuring movie streaming via netflix, you would expect the device to at least get 480 lines of vertical resolution, however the 3DS is only at a abysmal 240p with 400×240 resolution on the top screen and 320×240 on the bottom screen. This is however an improvement over the original DS, and should make details much sharper than anything we have seen from a Nintendo console before.

Even Sony’s last gen PSP from 2005 has more pixels than the 3DS’s top screen (if you don’t count the double pixel density of the 3D screen, or count the bottom touch screen). Here is a comparison shot of all devices:

As you can see, the NGP’s pixel density is pretty extreme, much like apple did when the launched their retina display, Sony has opted to simply double the resolution both horizontally and vertically, which makes running older applications on the new screen a simple matter of pixel doubling. note that by doubling both x and y means that the display is effectively 4x more dense.

So lets compare total pixels for each device:

Nintendo DS: 240×192 (x2 screens) = 98,304 Pixels
Sony PSP: 480×272 = 130,560 Pixels
Nintendo 3DS: 400×240 + 320×240 = 172,800 Pixels (268,800 if you include 3D Pixels)
Sony NGP: 960×544 = 522,240 Pixels

So there you have the breakdown. Now remember, pixel resolution is not the only factor in what makes games look good. Rendering methods, design, post processing effects, and now with the 3DS, even 3D rendering and more are what make the games look good. Both systems appear to be pushing some breakthrough hardware, it will be up to the software developers to design games that are fun to play and look great.

How to Make GPT, 4K Sector Drives and 3TB Drives Work as Storage Pool Drives in WHS PP3

admin — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 18:38:20 +0000

I recently had an idea for a workaround for 4k sector drives in WHS V1. I kept working on the idea. I am happy to announce that I have been able to come up with a method that should work for anyone using WHS PP3 to do the following things:

Create and Realign 4k Sector Drives correctly
Utilize GPT Partitions in the Storage Pool
Fully Utilize Disks larger than 2.1TB (3TB HDD in WHS anyone?)

In my own testing I have been able to create two 4TB GPT Partitions as storage pool drives. I have added and removed drives with no problem using this guide.

This is obviously not something recommended by microsoft, but there are many people out there who want to use 4k sector drives and align them properly without the use of jumpers, use 3TB hdd in WHS, use raid arrays in WHS larger than 2.1TB. This guide should let you do just that… Just a disclaimer, you do this at your own risk and I will not be held liable for you losing data. This is a fairly complicated guide, so do this at your own risk.

Here is the Guide:

1) Create storage space in raid controller/ install 3tb/advanced format drive

2) Turn on whs (make sure that nobody is copy files to or from the server before you proceed.)

3) If you have other drives added; make note of existing mount points in C:\fs folder. (i.e c:\fs\1k) That way you will know which mount point is the new one that is added.

4) Use whs to add disk to storage pool normally. (at this point, it will be added with a maximum capacity of 2.1tb, MBR only, and not aligned correctly for 4k sector drives.)

5) Make note of where the disk is mounted in c:\fs (for example mine created C:\fs\1K)

6) We need to make note of the original DISK ID at this step. This will make your life much easier later!
Use the command prompt and type “diskpart”
Type “List Disk” to see all your disks
Choose the disk you would like to view by typing Select Disk X (i.e Select Disk 1)
Type “Detail Disk”
Look for the Disk ID: (for example mine was DISK ID: DB7CA365)
Write down this diskid so you have it later.

7) Enter services by going to Windows – Run – Type “services.msc” Stop the services “Drive Extender Migrator Service” and “Virtual Disk Service” (you will get a prompt here that this will also shut down additional services.. Thats fine.) It is important to stop these services almost immediately after adding the disk in step 4, we don’t want any data copied to this drive if we can help it during this critical point.

Make a Copy of all files out of c:\fs\mount point that corresponds to your disk except the System Volume Information folder (you might need to change your windows explorer view settings to include view hidden files/system files/ protected operating system files)

9) OK here we go, time to delete the crappy partition that WHS created in step 4. Right click on my computer – manage – delete the partition whs created.

10) Recreate the partition as a GPT partition if your goal is to use a greater than 2.1TB volume, or realign the partition for advanced sectors if that is your goal. Once you are done creating your partition how you would like, Give it the label “DATA” and mount it back in the old mount point (c:\fs\*) (for example I mounted mine back in as C:\fs\1K) It is critical that you label it correctly and mount it correctly here in this step.

11) Copy your files back into the mount point that you copied out in step 7, copy them in as they were before you deleted the original partition.

OK now we have a good partition created! Now we need to trick WHS into accepting that drive as the old volume that we deleted.
WHS uses MBR volume ids (short) when it creates volumes, if you are using a GPT volume it uses a guid (long), but luckily the registry entries in whs support using long guids as well as the shorter MBR IDs. In this step we are going to make note of the DISK ID so we can trick WHS into using the new volume we created

12) Use the command prompt and type “diskpart”
Type “List Disk” to see all your disks
Choose the disk you would like to view by typing Select Disk X (i.e Select Disk 1)
Type “Detail Disk”
Look for the Disk ID: (for example mine was DISK ID: D67BAD45-F29E4FF49D69-3CE681DBA57B)
WRITE DOWN THAT DISK ID NUMBER! IT IS CRITICAL TO YOUR SUCCESS HERE.

Now that we have recreated the volume on our own terms, we have to tell WHS PP3 how to use it in the registry, many thanks to nitrobass24 on the HARDOCP forums for giving me tips on how this works, they were using these registry values for a different purpose, but his work helped here a lot. For Reference: http://hardforum.com…hp?p=1035306055

11)The first step is to change the disk information values in the registry
Enter the registry (Start – Run – regedit)
Look in your registry under the following path: Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Home Server\Storage Manager\Disks\
Find the registry folder that has a SystemName that matches the original DISKID you found in step 6. (for example mine was 1524393f-5fec-4dda-b108492f1ad342c6 with a SystemName of DB7CA365-0000-0000-0000-000000000000)
OK now you need to modify the SystemName to match the NEW GUID you discovered in Step 12. (for example I changed my system name to D67BAD45-F29E4FF49D69-3CE681DBA57B)
You will also need to change the Size Value to match the volume you created. To find the actual size value, go to the command prompt and type “WMIC”, then type “partition get name, size, startingoffset” make note of these values and enter the correct size value into the registry (mine was 3999688294400)

12) Now we need to change the Volume information values in the registry
Enter the registry (Start – Run – regedit)
Look in your registry under the following path: Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Home Server\Storage Manager\Volumes\
Find the Registry folder that has a MountPoint value that matches yours (for example, I found the folder that had a mount point of C:\fs\1K\)
OK now you need to change the Size to match the volume you created. To find the actual size value, go to the command prompt and type “WMIC”, then type “partition get name, size, startingoffset” make note of these values and enter the correct size value into the registry (mine was 3999688294400)
Now you need to change the SystemName here to match your new volume….. to do this go to the command prompt and type “mountvol” this will give you a list of volume names and current mount points… Find your mount point and make note of the Volume Name (for example mine was \\?\Volume{23e552b6-d0b4-452b-b19c-5071e8c06a76}\) Change the systemname in the registry to match this.
Now, expand the registry of the volume you are currently looking at in regedit. It will expand down to an Attributes folder and another guid folder underneath. In attributes, make sure DevicePath matches the volume name that we just put in in the previous step.
Go to the guid folder next to the attributes folder, we need to set the size and offset here. The name is the offset value, and the Data is the size of the volume, you need to change these to match your setup; so to find the actual size value and offset value, go to the command prompt and type “WMIC”, then type “partition get name, size, startingoffset” make note of these values (for example, my key was named 134235136 and my value was 3999554042368)

OK, you should now be good to go! reboot your server and it should come back up with a fancy GPT partition or properly aligned 4k sector drive ready to be used.

UPDATE: Here is a picture of the drives working as described above:

Exploring exFAT performance..

admin — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 00:47:32 +0000

I frequently copy DVD images (ISO files) around that are generally pretty large, normally to one of my many thumb drives I have laying around. I was kindof put off by the speeds I was getting.. waiting hours to copy these files sometimes was a drag if I was in a rush to get somewhere. I ended up purchasing an expensive high end USB 2.0 32GB thumbdrive (Patriot Xporter XT) speeds are better with this higher capacity drive, but I am still interested in achieving quicker copy times. FAT32 is generally considered quicker on thumb drives than NTFS, but FAT32 can only support up to 4GB sized files. Sure I could zip up my ISOs into separated zip containers, but that would take even MORE time. Enter exFAT…. designed with external flash drives in mind, this file system has less overhead than NTFS and supposedly should perform better ( See Here ) I had considered exFAT in the past, but I used my thumb drives with a lot of older computers and Vista or higher OS was required in order to read exFAT and it wasn’t practical. I also realize that this post may seem a little long in the tooth, with USB 3.0 drives becoming available and MLC flash storage improving performance in these products, but with windows 7 becoming more and more mainstream, exFAT might start to make more sense.

Here is the kicker though….. is exFAT really faster than my NTFS formatted thumb drive? Here is where we get to the meat of this post. I will be testing performance of my commonly used file sets to see how much quicker (if at all) an exFAT formatted USB drive is than the same drive formatted with NTFS.

All tests were run using a custom script that I wrote to both time and copy the files on a Patriot Xporter XT 32GB USB drive. (email me if you are interested in getting a copy of the script). Files were copied to and from a very fast Intel X-25M SSD to minimize any potential impact that a slower mechanical HDD might have on the results of the test.

NTFS TESTS (Default 4096bytes Allocation Size):

Large Movie ISO Test (7.32 GiB, 1 File)

READ: 225.25 Seconds ~33.27 MBps

WRITE: 374.98 Seconds ~19.99 MBps

DELETE: negligible (very quick)

Random Images/Documents (7.45 GiB, 2,812 Files)

READ: 276.20 Seconds ~27.62 MBps

WRITE: 830.05 Seconds ~9.19 MBps

DELETE:62.99 Seconds

exFAT TESTS (Default 32 kilobyte Allocation Size)

Large Movie ISO Test (7.32 GiB, 1 File)

READ: 239.11 Seconds ~31.35 MBps (5.7% Slower)

WRITE: 360.34 Seconds ~20.8 MBps (4.05% Faster)

DELETE: negligible (very quick)

Random Images/Documents (7.45 GiB, 2,812 Files)

READ: 272.03 Seconds ~ 28.04 MBps (1.5% Faster)

WRITE: 1067.95 Seconds ~7.14 MBps (22.3% Slower)

DELETE: 688.62 Seconds (1093% Slower)

Hmm seems like we have a problem here…. while exFAT does improve results slightly in some areas, it is also much slower at writing lots of random files. The real killer here is delete time!!!! exFAT is almost 11 times slower at deleting files than NTFS! Ridiculous…. I think I’ll stick to NTFS for now. You probably should too.