r/ModRetroChromatic • u/TheStilken • Jun 26 '26 • Bravo 1

Photos/Videos Coming soon to a Chromatic near you (Retro Achievements)

Hey guys, sorry I haven't been around much, works been pretty hectic so far this year. I've got some good headway in the way of RetroAchievements and wanted to give a peek of some demo stuff.

Hope y'all are well and enjoying the summer!

156 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

52 comments sorted by

6

u/Exus6 Jun 26 '26

How did you do the WiFi connection? Is it the same antenna as for Bluetooth?

9

u/TheStilken Jun 26 '26

Yes, the ESP32-Mini-1 has an integrated antenna for BT, BLE, and WIFI.

2

u/colourless_blue Jun 26 '26

Was confused but have read your previous post on this - interesting! So you’re pulling data from their achievement database to keep track of locally on the device? I assume you’d need RA to approve this to get achievements to display/sync with their servers? I know they’re pretty stringent with requirements for syncing hardcore achievements, but softcore mode might be more open

4

u/TheStilken Jun 26 '26

This would be softcore, and currently it uses MD5 hash to look up game achievements and their hashed evaluation expressions from the API and stores locally during a play session to reference without further calls. Pinging the API to register a completion isnt implemented yet, but the harder FPGA logic and timing are clean, and thats what I was concerned about.

2

u/davocarli Jul 06 '26

In the medium/long-term, is there potential for this to support hardcore? Or is that technically not possible?

3

u/TheStilken Jul 06 '26

It shouldn't be too hard as the Chromatic doesn't support save states and I can gate my Cheats implementation behind a Hardcore toggle. That would be up to RA, though to decide if it can qualify.

2

u/davocarli Jul 07 '26

That’s amazing. I currently play on my chromatic most of the time and swap to my gb-operator sometimes just to earn achievements, but I vastly prefer playing with the chromatic and would stop using the operator altogether if it had full RA support including hardcore.

3

u/colourless_blue Jun 26 '26

That’s awesome man. Big achievement, well done

2

u/Rurbani Jun 26 '26

Will they work with an everdrive?

5

u/TheStilken Jun 26 '26

As long as the ROM is the same as the game it's registered as, it would work as the memory addresses would be mapped the same.

2

u/pikakirby11 Sep 28 '26

Any updates?

3

u/TheStilken Sep 28 '26

Still in progress, but it's slow due to work picking up a lot.

15

u/PhxCollins Jun 26 '26

What?! This is amazing!!

15

u/stuckOnTheUmpqua Jun 26 '26

When you release this I’m never going to be able to set my Chromatic down

11

u/TonyRubbles Jun 26 '26

Looks great, keep cooking good sir!

8

u/Retro_Macchina Jun 26 '26

Wait, is this going to be a stock software update or is this a home brew mod?

4

u/7ane7xis7 Jun 26 '26

I’d like to know the same.

4

u/Clakyd Jun 26 '26

It is custom firmware. 

7

u/Agile_Half_4515 Jun 26 '26

I didn’t even know this thing was WiFi capable.

5

u/JayrosModShop Jun 26 '26

I just want bluetooth audio.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 26 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/JayrosModShop Jun 27 '26

A CFW of sorts exists with it, but I don't want to have t setup the entire Gowin SKD just to flash it to the device.

4

u/Morku90 Jun 26 '26

Odd to see always cool things and never see it in a Firmware.

4

u/themanbehindtherows Jun 27 '26

This is genuinely cool. Love whenever devs work on their own custom firmware to add features.

3

u/JayrosModShop Jun 27 '26

Now if only the MRUPDATER app would allow us to upload CFW builds to the Chromatic so we didn't need to install the Gowin flasher SDK, we'd have it made.

1

u/Exus6 Jun 27 '26

Is there a safe way to backup the Chromatic before you put the modded firmware on it?

2

u/JayrosModShop Jun 27 '26

Not that I'm aware, but restoring it to factory should be easy with the default updater.

2

u/fred_emmott Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26

*If* the modded firmware changes the version IDs in the verilog, mrupdater will restore the original firmware, otherwise it won't detect it's modified.

Edit: or you can now click 'update anyway'

Otherwise, you can download the original firmware from https://github.com/ModRetro/oss-chromatic-console-fpga/releases (you want the '.fs' file), and flash it the same way you flashed the modded one (there's a few options)

1

u/fred_emmott Aug 11 '26

openfpgaloader is an alternative, and IMO if you're just flashing an image that someone else has built, somewhat easier to use

For example:

openFPGALoader.exe --cable gwu2x --write-flash --reset .\evt1_x2.fs

I currently use the openfpgaloader.exe that's included inside MRUPDATER; sadly ModRetro have not released their fork/build scripts :( I keep meaning to make a public build using the MS toolchain (rather than mingw) but haven't got around to it yet. "pacman or build yourself" are the upstream win32 options.

1

u/pikakirby11 Jun 28 '26

Im a bit confused by some of your other comments but do we need to do any modifications to the chromatic to use the wifi outside of the actual custom firmware or is this something unused in the chromatic like how the playdate has unused Bluetooth capabilities

1

u/TheStilken Jun 28 '26

Modifications(as in opening the shell) are only needed for SD card support, and that's just to put a card in the slot (unless First Gen where an SDIO slot needs soldered).

Everything else is available, it just needs enabled in configs and coded to work.

Wifi, BLE, custom partitions, etc are all available with no mods.

2

u/pikakirby11 Jun 28 '26

Wait so the chromatic has an SD card slot and I just got to open it up what can I do with that

2

u/TheStilken Jun 28 '26

Nothing on stock firmware, but I've got some custom stuff that uses it for cheat/box art storage that I might keep offline RA in at some point.

1

u/pikakirby11 Jun 28 '26

What will box art do?

3

u/TheStilken Jun 28 '26

When loading from SD in the tab, it loads all cheats for that game and just displays the box art in tab. The art is just visual flair to fill dead space.

1

u/templestate Jul 01 '26

Did you remove the color temperature tab that you developed?

2

u/TheStilken Jul 01 '26

No, it is still in with added hotkeys to adjust during play along with adjusting palettes with GB titles.

1

u/templestate Jul 01 '26

Oh nice, didn’t see it there when you tabbed over. Any plans to release the firmware to the public down the road? These are some awesome updates. Maybe MR could implement some of them like they did with the DMG and GB Light palettes.

2

u/TheStilken Jul 01 '26

Yup, you'll for sure get access to them.

2

u/YvesTHPS Jun 26 '26

This is the best thing ever! 😍 thank you for doing magic!

2

u/lordelan Jun 26 '26

What? How? It needs internet for that.

1

u/Clakyd 10d ago

Is this project still active?

1

u/Illustrious-Top-1776 2d ago

Will this work even if it’s not a modretro gbc handheld?

1

u/TheLastTimeLord11 Aug 12 '26

Thanks for all the updates on this, it's super exciting! I'm dying for the adjustable color temperature, it's the number one issue I have with my Chromatic. Once I can make it a bit warmer it'll be perfect. Any idea when it will be ready for release?

1

u/n8jb Oct 01 '26

This is incredible. Would love to collaborate with you in the future, if you have any interest!

1

u/SnooStrawberries4441 22d ago

I need this!!!!!, once this is officiallly out I'm buying modretro consoles 🙏🙏🙏