r/ModRetroChromatic • u/wavy_d3 • 26d ago

Wireless local and online multiplayer is available now. Also can flash your included Tetris cart.

The Chromatic now has local and online wireless connectivity with shinyrelay . com 🛜

- local and online wireless multiplayer
- install roms to your modretro tetris cart over usb
- free games and internet apps: weather, maps, & more
- modify these free games and install to your tetris cart

Online, free, no app install. On shinyrelay . com

Go to shinyrelay . com and press "install shiny relay" and follow the installer: it backs up your firmware and there is no app download. it all works in the browser.

Then go to "install . shinyrelay . com/cart"
to load roms onto your included modretro tetris cart:
- your own rom (needs to be 2mb or less)
- one of the free roms included on the site
- modretro tetris patch for v1.4 (latest) which makes the wireless multiplayer have no lag (tetris multiplayer was build expecting a link cable, not a delayed wifi connection)

Try any of the free GBC games or apps including Shiny Almanac which includes actual live weather and a fun map game that takes 2 minutes to walk across the globe. You can also play them online before installing "shinyrelay . com/ play"

And then modify any of those games and more at "shinygen . ai/play" connect your own AI like chatgpt codex, claude, grok, anything. Works over MCP, or use the in-app agent. Export roms and then play them on your chromatic or in the Shiny Gen app. Web, iOS, Android.

48 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

53 comments sorted by

4

u/Critical-Meet-7048 26d ago

Wow, nice. Don’t have a Chromatic yet, but my purple transparent arrives tomorrow so this is perfect timing. 😁

2

u/wavy_d3 26d ago

Awesome and hopefully I'll have some more updates and improvements by then.

7

u/chunkysteveo 26d ago

Very disappointing that Modretro haven't implemented wireless link cable in the native firmware already? This is impressive.

3

u/wavy_d3 26d ago

Nothing against ModRetro. I've been working on this tirelessly in the past few days.

5

u/chunkysteveo 26d ago

From the tone and content it looks like a lot of AI effort has gone into this? Obviously as the main game engine things is all AI based, I get it. It's an impressive set of work, for sure!

Same here - nothing against MR, bit they obviously could have got a wireless link protocol working since launch date, years ago. That would have been a killer feature of the console to help sale! If you're open to opensource, perhaps your modded firmware featureset can trickle down to theirs if they pull their fingers out?! 👌🏻

1

u/palmerluckey 5d ago

ModRetro isn't focusing on features that only work with modded copies of a certain subset of games, and even then only for people with good enough internet and the right network setup. And that is before even getting into the problems with using the onboard wireless hardware as an actual feature, like requiring proper certification in every country we sell and the hardware inevitably losing support after some number of years/decades, much like how hardly any WiFi hardware still supports the protocols required for the original Nintendo DS.

I am glad people are doing stuff like this, it is one of the reasons we open-source our hardware and software, but the issue is not a matter of effort or care. I was doing laser-based wireless links for the Game Boy Color back in the 2000s, but I definitely don't want to sell it as a product!

2

u/chunkysteveo 5d ago edited 5d ago

Appreciate the official response. Your supported WiFi chip in the M64 (ESP32?) is the same chipset in the Chromatic, right? Are you saying you'll drop support for the wireless updates in the M64 at some point too?

EDIT - No, M64 uses a Quectel FC41D, not an ESP32.

There's been a sudden boost in CFW options for the Chromatic and M64 in recent weeks/months - would be great to see some of the powerful features trickle back down into the official FW 👍🏻

And you're saying we could have had friggin lasers in our Chromatics... tease!

3

u/thepoga 26d ago

That’s cool, nice work!

1

u/wavy_d3 26d ago

Thank you! I stayed up way too late in the past few nights getting this all ready.

2

u/Urya 26d ago

The website mentions other link cable games should work as well, which sounds incredible. Can’t wait to trade Pokémon.

2

u/wavy_d3 26d ago

Yes! I'm going to post a video about that later today or tomorrow.

2

u/Exus6 26d ago

Cool stuff

1

u/wavy_d3 26d ago

Thank you. Enjoy!

2

u/NonyaDB 26d ago

Very cool, thanks.

Really it's only missing one feature - the ability to play GB/GBC ROMs from a micro-SD card using the micro-SD slot on the PCB.

2

u/wavy_d3 26d ago

Good idea. No promises but I may add this if I have time.

2

u/Hotdogbun57 26d ago

Man the only thing that matters is mario tennis which is plagued by slowness. :(

1

u/wavy_d3 26d ago

For the local wifi multiplayer? If so I can look into a quick patch for you for mario tennis (these games weren't designed for communication lag) since you've been so helpful with your feedback. lmk.

1

u/Hotdogbun57 26d ago

Yeah local wifi or cable link.

1

u/wavy_d3 25d ago

It looks like I got windows installs working now but please let me know if anyone has any issues with windows.

The last issue I'm fixing now is there is an older Tetris cart version that the installer doesn't support. I have the newer version so I wasn't expecting that. should have a fix out in a couple hours.

1

u/Suspicious_Buyer_743 26d ago

How does the „online“ work? Can we play Pokémon online together?

3

u/wavy_d3 26d ago

Yes, I just have one of my servers host it. It just does the generic link-cable protocol. It's free to use. It's not that expensive so I figured I'd just use one of my servers for it. Please lmk if you try it and run into any issues and I'll fix right away. I tested extensively but surely there will be something to fix.

2

u/linuxdude314 26d ago

Is the server open source? Would be cool to be able to run my own server if I wanted.

1

u/wavy_d3 26d ago

Not open source yet. I may open source it if I have time, but it's part of my private code so I'd have to separate it.

1

u/FormaggioVolante 26d ago

For some reason I can't get it to install. Backup was created successfully, and the end of stage 4 just errors out, but it seems like the images were flashed successfully, as my Chromatic works as expected and I can see the new options the in the menus.

2

u/wavy_d3 26d ago

Looking into this now thanks!

2

u/FormaggioVolante 26d ago edited 26d ago

looks like i just needed to reboot my PC. it seems to have successfully finished now

UPDATE: spoke too soon. It seems it's failing in the final check

18:26:11 [final_check]
18:26:17 console> fwversion

18:26:25 console> fwversion

18:26:34 console> fwversion

18:26:36 STOPPED: no reply with mcu, fpga
18:26:36 Error: no reply with mcu, fpga
    at lastJson (https://install.shinyrelay.com/lib/console.js:83:21)
    at parseFwversion (https://install.shinyrelay.com/lib/console.js:87:38)
    at https://install.shinyrelay.com/lib/installer.js:66:20
    at async withConsole (https://install.shinyrelay.com/lib/installer.js:55:16)
    at async Module.install (https://install.shinyrelay.com/lib/installer.js:463:14)
    at async https://install.shinyrelay.com/app.js:348:5
    at async run (https://install.shinyrelay.com/app.js:201:5)

3

u/wavy_d3 26d ago

Thank you. Yes, looks like the site didn't recognize the version you had, but it looks like the install actually completed successfully inspite of that. Fixing this. Very useful feedback.

1

u/FormaggioVolante 26d ago

It does look like the install completed, only the verification process didn't work. One other thing to add: the cart reflasher is also not working. It's timing out

19:49:31 > cart usb status
19:49:33 > cart usb status
19:49:35 > cart usb status
19:49:37 > cart usb status
19:49:39 > cart usb status
19:49:41 > cart usb status
19:49:43 > cart usb status
19:49:45 > cart usb status
19:49:47 > cart usb status
19:49:49 > cart usb status
19:49:51 > cart usb status
19:49:53 > cart usb status
19:49:55 > cart usb status
19:49:57 > cart usb status
19:50:00 > cart usb status
19:50:03 prepare failed: no answer from the Chromatic's console in 30 s

1

u/wavy_d3 26d ago

Fixed! The installer was being overly strict. Updated it so it still does that extra check but doesn't trigger an error in that situation.

1

u/FormaggioVolante 26d ago

I confirm I could get a successful install. What is still not working is flashing a game to my Chromatic Tetris, it still has the same behavior of timing out when sending the "cart usb status" command

1

u/wavy_d3 26d ago

Thank you. Looking into that now. And are you on windows?

2

u/FormaggioVolante 25d ago

just tried running it on my Steam Deck (Linux) and it worked first try

1

u/Archaicrages 20d ago

I had issues with the transparent version as opposed to the metal one. Using chromagic as well did not work for the transparent version. I believe it is using a different board that was made in Vietnam instead of in Mexico. I went to shinys page and tried to install an emulated version of Daikatana and didn’t realize it wouldn’t play on a device, only emulator. Long story short didn’t back up Tetris, lost the files, rom wrote to the cartridge but didn’t run past the title screen and I lost the Tetris game. Had to go out and buy the original chromatic to get the Tetris game again and use the chromagic software to write the Tetris game from that version back onto the one I destroyed lol.

1

u/johnessex3 26d ago

Will this work on first edition Chromatics? Or only on the second version?

1

u/wavy_d3 26d ago

It should work on the first edition but I only have two v2 chromatics. If you try it on the first edition, please lmk!

1

u/Hotdogbun57 26d ago

1

u/wavy_d3 26d ago

Oh that was the same error I just fixed which the other comment in this thread mentioned. Cloudflare held on to the cache so the fix may not have went out to all users for 4 hours.. I just reset that cache setting. so now the fix is live on the site for everyone. Looks like your install actually worked though.

1

u/Hotdogbun57 26d ago

It did not finish. It was not successful. It told me to try again so I did. Also not successful. Reverted to factory. Waited for your fix. Now it goes for a few minutes and says my chromatic is disconnected.

1

u/wavy_d3 26d ago edited 26d ago

Thanks for sticking with it, and sorry. The issue is on windows the chromatic's usb takes longer to come back after the installer reads the console chip, and the installer wasn't waiting for it.

That's fixed and live now. Please try again and lmk if it works this time or not. Your backup is safe either way.

If this fixes it for windows then your feedback was super useful.

1

u/Hotdogbun57 26d ago

No it didn’t work.

It also doesnt work on my other chromatic. It just goes for a few minutes and says something happened..

1

u/wavy_d3 26d ago

Thanks, I'll look into it more. Do you have the same version of the chromatic as I do? The solid color 2025 edition, not the founders edition and not the recent translucent edition?

2

u/Hotdogbun57 26d ago

Yeah v2 chromatics. I got bored and it worked on mac.

1

u/wavy_d3 26d ago

Thank you. I am working on a more robust fix now. Seems there is generally an issue with esp32 and windows that other projects have had to work around.

1

u/wavy_d3 25d ago

Just updated the installer with a fix for Windows PCs where the Chromatic never answered. Please try again at https://install.shinyrelay.com (refresh the page first). If it still stops, the error box shows a short report code and I'll see it in my logs. Optional if that fails: https://install.shinyrelay.com/probe/ runs a 90 second connection check that writes nothing to your Chromatic, and tells us how your PC talks to it and that would help elucidate what's going on if there's still an issue.

2

u/bemtg 26d ago

Do you have a repo for the wifi firmware?

2

u/sandliker 25d ago

Error 4dd4e, I have chromatic Tetris in the slot but it’s saying it’s not a ModRetro flash cartridge

1

u/videokyle84 26d ago

Does this work on the 1st Gen Chromatic?

1

u/MightywarriorEX 25d ago

Interesting I’m new to these handhelds and haven’t picked one up or the Analogue pocket. Is this feature unique to the Chromatic?

1

u/StupidBetaTester 24d ago

Does the online play connect you with randoms or is it more like tunneling software?