LGR Oddware - NEC PC-FXGA DOS/V Game Accelerator Card
Added 2020-10-13 17:33:38 +0000 UTChttps://youtu.be/JM04vH2et5A
Hi there, folks! It's another week and there's another fresh LGR episode for your viewing pleasure. LGR Oddware, no less!
This time it's the NEC PC-FXGA DOS/V, a so-called "Game Accelerator" from mid-90s Japan that effectively drops an entire PC-FX game console onto a 16-bit ISA card. Yeah, kinda like the 3DO Blaster but even more obscure and even less desirable, haha. This is some prime oddware and I'm excited to have what I believe is the first video review of it on YouTube, at least in English!
Even more so than the 3DO Blaster, it really is a straight up console on a card, to the degree that it doesn't even display anything on your computer monitor. It requires an external TV connection to show any gameplay, something I didn't realize until setting it up for myself. Though it might be fun to whip out an old capture card and pipe it through that just for fun.
Anyway yeah, this episode's been a long time coming and took an inordinate amount of behind the scenes time to put together. Mostly due to setting up, troubleshooting, and testing far, far more stuff than what you see in the final video. So I hope you enjoy, and if not, the next video is already in the works 👍
Comments
Cool! Yeah, I was lucky enough to have a PC-98 that already came with Japanese Windows. Thanks for the video, it was very comprehensive. (I think you found the best PC-FX games also, it only goes downhill from there...)
Thomas Daede
2020-10-17 05:16:15 +0000 UTCYep! As mentioned in the video this particular PC didn't have any kind of compatible Japanese Windows configured. I'll have a follow-up episode though.
LGR
2020-10-17 04:20:44 +0000 UTCIf you launch MENU_WIN on Windows 3.1 or Windows 98, there is a 3D graphics and animation editor that is pretty cool. It will upload models and animations to the card, and let you edit the wireframes on the Windows side.
Thomas Daede
2020-10-17 01:34:43 +0000 UTCI fully expect remixes, haha.
LGR
2020-10-16 20:42:47 +0000 UTChttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTSC-J
LGR
2020-10-16 20:42:23 +0000 UTCDid I understand correctly that this card output to NTSC? Wasn't PAL the standard in Japan?
Library of Context
2020-10-16 18:49:25 +0000 UTCOMG, I was just as delighted as Clint by the dragonfly video. The music and animation just scream vaporwave
Brian Gordon
2020-10-16 06:09:50 +0000 UTCWhat a quirky thing this is! Loved the dragonfly meets T. Rex video... And even kinda like the anime stuff as well. Another fun video!
2020-10-15 06:33:28 +0000 UTCThe dragonfly video is one of the best things I've ever seen. Laughed SO hard when it kept going, channeling those 90s vibes so hard. 🤣
2020-10-15 02:42:30 +0000 UTCYou were correct, Der Langrisser got a English fan translation on the SNES. And a offical translation recently on the PS4/Switch.
Kenneth Cummings
2020-10-14 22:54:47 +0000 UTCThat video with the dragonfly started out as every CGI demo from the early 90's and turned into Gon's ending from Tekken 3.
moosemaimer
2020-10-14 14:02:27 +0000 UTCI thought the Kubota logo was interesting. I thought they only made tractors.
2020-10-14 10:08:38 +0000 UTCCool to see the Hudson logo on some of the chips.
Adam Baxter
2020-10-14 09:24:59 +0000 UTCNow that's an interesting piece of kit. It's a shame it, or the PC-FX itself never had any success (which is easy to see why), as for being a set of dev tools, it's a neat way to do it.
Rob Caporetto
2020-10-14 06:42:27 +0000 UTCOther than a couple of games I'd probably have skipped it myself!
LGR
2020-10-14 03:02:49 +0000 UTCAnd more singing about the World O' Weirdness... Wonder if that's related to Fester Blatt's World O' Wonders :D
Jason Wellband
2020-10-14 03:01:37 +0000 UTCLove your reaction to the dragonfly & the T-Rex. We need more of these things to counteract the rest of 2020 :)
Jason Wellband
2020-10-14 02:59:54 +0000 UTCYou may not care to be this anal, but technically "gouraud" is pronounced GOO-ROH, as it's derived from a French name from the guy that coined "gouraud shading". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-GKzksIb-4
Nathan (PixelPipes)
2020-10-14 01:32:13 +0000 UTCWhen I first visited Japan back in 2013, Super Potato had PCFX systems for basically pocket change, they were just so unpopular. I passed on it then because when I googled the game list, I didn't care much for what it had to offer. Kicking myself now, though!!
RetroSwim
2020-10-14 01:00:18 +0000 UTCPlanning to do so next time I've got the Woodgrain PC next to my capture rig 😊
LGR
2020-10-13 21:31:22 +0000 UTCLove the card and the review; what a strange item... Any chance of that dragonfly dinosaur masterpiece being capture card’ed by itself for internet posterity?
Eric
2020-10-13 21:06:01 +0000 UTCHeh, seriously though. I typically leave 300h free just because so many cards I swap in will try to occupy it by default, this one included. My SCSI-2 card is set to 340h as a result.
LGR
2020-10-13 20:46:11 +0000 UTCI've been lucky enough to attain both! They are increasingly rare beasts indeed, and will no doubt make some awesome videos once get around to them. Still trying to track down a component or two for each system.
LGR
2020-10-13 20:44:34 +0000 UTCOoooh now that'd be awesome to see happen. Those videos deserve to be shared in all their compressed glory.
LGR
2020-10-13 20:42:52 +0000 UTCI got it from Real Arcade as well! Pretty sure I ordered a registered one at some point too, gotta see if I can dig that up.
LGR
2020-10-13 20:41:36 +0000 UTCSince FMV is just MJPEG someone at the FFMPEG project could probably figure out the PC-FX's MIX file format and add playback support so we can all enjoy CGI dinosaurs and dragonflies.
2020-10-13 19:48:08 +0000 UTCNow those are some PC Graphix right there.
Rich
2020-10-13 19:30:20 +0000 UTCDefault base port 300h? Now that's totally not occupied at all and will totally not interfere with common SCSI cards of the time. /s
2020-10-13 19:18:12 +0000 UTCAnd if you really want something that's weird compared to what you're used to... PC-98 MS-DOS makes whatever drive you booted from drive A: ... that includes the hard drive. Even Windows 95 for PC-98 keeps the weird tradition, which means programs by default are installed to A:¥Program Files and Windows is A:¥WINDOWS
2020-10-13 19:16:00 +0000 UTCI think you'll find the Yen symbol for backslash is just the start of how just how weird Shift-JIS character encoding is for old Japanese DOS and Windows :)
2020-10-13 19:12:30 +0000 UTCThis is really... fascinating ! Now that's a great oddware episode ! I can't wrap my head around the economical sense (or lack thereof) around it. How was it going to sell well ? Although I'm very glad that it exists and still runs. Speaking of odd stuff, I'm trying to track down a TeraPC (IBM PC + Megadrive combo) or the more known Amstrad MegaPC, with no luck so far. All those PC + Console combos are really alluring for us retrogamers.
Maximilien Noal
2020-10-13 18:53:54 +0000 UTCThe FLUX game you mention is one I thought about a few days ago. It was a really fun game but I couldn't not for the life of me get it to run anymore. It was a Real Arcade game and had a really good song that went with the game.
Jamie Cruickshank
2020-10-13 18:43:44 +0000 UTCThank you!
LGR
2020-10-13 18:40:34 +0000 UTCHa! Yeah, who put all these darned interactive sections in this anime, what a silly idea.
LGR
2020-10-13 18:40:21 +0000 UTCNot many, that's for sure. Mostly it's things like the PlayStation development kits, which came with a pair of PC ISA cards for PS1 game creation.
LGR
2020-10-13 18:39:33 +0000 UTCYou’ve been on a roll with your videos and LGR Blerbs. So much cool stuff!
2020-10-13 18:30:13 +0000 UTCIt's always slightly annoying when your FMV is interrupted by some gameplay. That's aside, what an amazingly rare piece of hardware. Excellent stuff.
Erwin Bierhof
2020-10-13 18:25:55 +0000 UTCI find stuff like this and the 3DO super interesting. I wonder if a more "mainstream" console ever did something like this...
Hernando Heilbron
2020-10-13 18:19:47 +0000 UTCIndeed! I'm hoping it brings a few folks out of the woodwork to share some of the homebrew stuff so I can do a short follow-up.
LGR
2020-10-13 18:06:21 +0000 UTCThis is some pretty historic YT material for sure.
Nathan (PixelPipes)
2020-10-13 18:05:17 +0000 UTCMore or less, yep! Unlike that though, it didn't come with the software tools to do so. Programming kits and SDKs were sold separately and hit the market some time after the card launched.
LGR
2020-10-13 18:02:41 +0000 UTC
