Turbo EverDrive Pro + EDFX - A Match Made in Heaven?

Courtesy of Krikzz and Wikipedia

One of Krikzz' earliest flash carts was the Turbo EverDrive for the Turbo Grafx 16 and PC Engine.  His Turbo EverDrive v1 and v2 only supported HuCards.  Eventually competition came in the form of TerraOnion and their Super SD System 3 and later Super HD System 3 PRO, which supported TurboGrafx/PC Engine CD images.  Most people who keep track of the flash cart and optical drive emulator world assumed sooner or later that Krikzz would release a device that would support CD images. While recent events affecting his country may have caused delay Krikzz' CD-ROM simulating device, the Turbo EverDrive Pro, is finally here and I will review it.

About Screen

The PC Engine and its Add-ons

The PC Engine was a very successful console in Japan, giving the mighty Famicom a serious run for its money thanks to its much faster CPU, larger sprites, more colorful graphics and somewhat more sophisticated stereo PSG audio.  The games came as ROM chips on a card-like medium which were called HuCards.  NEC and Hudson Soft, the makers of the PC Engine, were very forward thinking in planning for a CD-ROM add-on which was released when the console was just over a year old in late 1988.  The Yellow Book standard, which defined the CD-ROM, was still hot off the presses in 1988.  The PC Engine sports some of the earliest CD-ROM software ever developed and released for the consumer market.

File Menu & Browser

NEC and Hudson Soft released their console in the US as the TurboGrafx-16, but the console had serious difficulty competing with the NES and the Sega Genesis.  Only 105 TurboCards were released in the US.  There was a very limited release of the TurboGrafx-16 in some European countries but no games were localized for the PAL territories.  Instead the consoles were modified to output at 50Hz. NEC and Hudson Soft eventually released the Turbo CD add-on for the TurboGrafx-16, but it was not a great success either.  

NEC and Hudson Soft had found further success with their CD-ROM² upgrade and later released PC Engine Duo with HuCard + CD-ROM support. The Duo was revised twice as the Duo-R and Duo-RX and handily beat the Sega CD in Japanese sales and game releases. Only the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation knocked it off the top optical console spot in Japan. The PC Engine Duo's US counterpart, the Turbo Duo, failed again with only 45 games officially released on CD.  

The original PC Engine CD-ROM² add-on on plugged not into the Expansion Port on the back of the PC Engine directly but through a briefcase-shaped Interface Unit which connected both devices side by side and added composite AV output to the previous RF-only PC Engine.  HuCards generally had a maximum capacity of 1MiB but the CD-ROM could offer up over 650MiB of storage for a game.  The CD-ROM² could also play Red Book CD 16-bit/44.1KHz Digital Stereo Audio tracks and had an ADPCM chip to playback 8-bit samples stored within a data track.  Most PC Engine CD games use a mixture of one to two data tracks with several audio tracks which are known as Mixed Mode CDs. Finally, the CD-ROM² had a dedicated 2KiB of non-volatile memory for backing up save games.  

Options Menu

The original CD-ROM² upgrade required the user to insert a System Card into the HuCard slot in order to run a CD game.  The System Card contained the BIOS needed for the CD and battery backup functions as well as implementing the CD player.  The early System Cards v1.0, v2.0 & v2.1 only added ROM to the system.  The US only received a localized version of the v2.0 System Card.  Officially five Japanese systems are compatible with the CD-ROM² upgrade, the original PC Engine, the SuperGrafx, the CoreGrafx, the CoreGrafx II and the PC Engine LT.  The original TurboGrafx-16 has its own CD-ROM upgrade, the TurboGrafx-CD.

The CD-ROM² came with 64KiB RAM built into the device to store data transferred from a CD, but this would be expanded with the Super System Card v3.0 to add 192KiB of RAM for additional data buffering.  The Super System Card v3.0 came in US and Japanese variants.  Games which require a Super System Card v3.0 will indicate that they will not work with an older Card inserted.  All the Duo consoles (PC Engine Duo, Turbo Duo, PC Engine Duo R, PC Engine Duo RX) have the ROM and RAM of a Super System Card v3.0 built-in.  The Super CD-ROM² will connect to the back of an PC Engine's Expansion Port without the Interface Unit and provide the same capabilities of the Super System Card v3.0 without needing a HuCard.

Audio Options

Late in the console's life, NEC released the Arcade Card in Japan.  The Arcade Card added 2MiB on top of the RAM added by the CD unit and the Super System Cards.  The software did not change, an Arcade Card will show as a v3.0 Card.  There were separate Arcade Cards released for the Duo (Arcade Card Duo) and the non-Duo (Arcade Card Pro) consoles.  No NEC console was released with a built-in Arcade Card.  Only 12 Arcade CD-ROM games were released.

For players with tighter budgets but wanted save game support beyond writing down passwords, NEC released a peripheral for the Expansion Port of the PC Engine called the Ten no Koe 2.  This device contains 2KiB of non-volatile memory which is accessed the same way as the 2KiB in the CD-ROM add-ons.  The device was released in the USA as the Backup Booster.  Certain HuCard games support the  Ten no Koe 2/Backup Booster and will allow the player to save their game if there is room on the device.  

Diagnostics Testing

The Turbo EverDrive Pro's Basic Features

The Turbo EverDrive Pro (TED Pro) functions similarly to the earlier Turbo EverDrive v2 in that it loads HuCard ROMs from a microSD card into RAM and runs the game.  The process is pretty much instantaneous, the flash memory based Turbo EverDrive v1 took several seconds to erase the flash and write a new game.  The TED Pro supports FAT32 formatting for the microSD card and will support SDHC and SDXC cards.  Krikzz indicated on twitter that it also works with exFAT formatting.  

The TED Pro automatically detects whether it is being used in a US or a Japanese console and will configure itself appropriately.  The TED v2 required the user to flick a switch on the card to set the system region correctly.  

Key Assignment

The TED Pro will run unusual games like Street Fighter II' - Champion Edition (2.5MiB ROM) and Populous (512KiB ROM + 8KiB RAM) without issue.  If you have a SuperGrafx you can load those games as well.  I do not believe it supports the function of a Ten no Koe Bank Card, which allows you to copy save data from a Ten no Koe 2, CD-ROM add-on or Duo console to the Card.  

New to the TED Pro is the ability to use save states with PC Engine & TurboGrafx-16 HuCard games.  They function similarly to the save states of the EverDrive N8 Pro, you pull up the in-game menu or save a state using a key combination.  You can change the key combinations for the save, load and menu.  The In-Game Menu can also be called with the button on the TED Pro itself.  A new feature is the ability to preview a save state as a screenshot of the point in the game when the save was made will be taken and can be shown using the File Menu.  99 save states are supported.  The music and sound effects might not sound correct when you restore a save state but generally they clear up when the music changes or the next level/area is loaded.  

Hex Viewer

Individually selectable Cheats in the MagicEngine format are supported and can be listed in a text file (.txt) instead of entering the codes in by hand every time you start the game.  You have to select a game, then select the text file and use the Load Cheats item from the File Menu to activate the Cheats in- game.  You can turn off Cheat codes in-game using the In Game Menu.

Other features will be well-known to long-time EverDrive users.  There is an option to see a list of recently played games and to automatically boot to the last game chosen.  You can turn off the In-Game Menu and the Cheats, set the device to sort files and see the device info and run diagnostics.  A new feature is adding a background theme image to the File Browser.  

Cheats Editor

With most if not all previous Krikzz' flash carts, the flash cart will load firmware from a file which had to be present on the microSD card.  The TED Pro requires the user to flash a new firmware using the File Menu.  If the firmware becomes corrupted, you can flash a recovery firmware using the USB port.

CD-ROM Support and EDFX

EDFX Output Sample 1

The TED Pro, being a HuCard device, has to overcome certain limitations that Expansion Port devices, like the TerraOnion products, do not.  There are just enough signals on the HuCard slot to allow a device to simulate the CD-ROM add-on.  This allows the TED Pro to run CD games or provide Ten no Koe 2 support in PC Engine systems which do not have an standard Expansion Port.  These include the Turbo Express and PC Engine GT handhelds and the PC Engine Shuttle.  As the Duo consoles already have a CD-ROM and the equivalent of a Ten no Koe 2 built in, the CD-ROM and Ten no Koe 2 functions of the TED Pro will not function with these systems.  You must remove a Ten no Koe 2 or Backup Booster, if any, plugged into your console's Expansion Port if you wish to use the TED Pro's CD-ROM or Ten no Koe 2 functions. 

The TED v2.x could be used as a System Card or even a Super System Card for CD add-ons.  It could not be used as an Arcade Card, a feature the TED Pro adds.  The TED Pro is able to add Arcade Support to a CD add-on system or even a Duo.  

EDFX Output Sample 2

The TED Pro can run CD-ROM, Super CD-ROM and Arcade CD-ROM images.  Redump.org has good images of all released PC Engine and Turbo CD games except for one or two obscure Japanese games.  You should use those, they can be found on a certain well-known Internet Archival site.  The images must be unzipped to a directory and you run them by selecting that directory in the File Browser.  

You of course must provide the System Card ROM, in this case no-intro should be used.  You put a default System Card BIOS into the folder /edturbo/bios which the firmware makes on first boot.  I would strongly recommend putting [BIOS] Super CD-ROM System (Japan) (v3.0).pce in that folder.  This BIOS works with just about any CD game, US or Japan.  Some games like Mugen Senshi Valis will not show the text in the opening correctly with a US Super System Card. If you want to load a specific BIOS for a CD game, then copy the BIOS ROM into the CD game's folder.  Juuouki (Rev 4) only runs properly with a System Card v1.0 BIOS, so put that one in its folders.  

EDFX Output Sample 3

Seven Unlicensed Japanese CD games from Games Express need the Games Express BIOS in their folders. They are as follows:

AV Tanjou (Super CD RAM required)
Bishoujo Janshi Idol Pai
CD Bishoujo Pachinko - Kyuuma Yon Shimai
CD Hanafuda - Bishoujo Fan Club
CD Mahjong - Bishoujo Chuushinha
CD Pachi-Slot - Bishoujo Gambler
Hi-Leg Fantasy

There were two versions of the Game Express BIOS, the Blue Version and the Green Version.  Use the Blue Version for all games, the Green Version gives you broken games. I tried all the Game Express games and they boot and ran with the Blue Version.

The TED Pro supports multiple disc image formats.  .bin/.cue is supported either as a large single .bin file or multiple .bin files.  Substitutes for data tracks include .iso and .img files and .wav files can be used for audio tracks.  The community gold standard for dumping game discs is set by redump.org, which always uses multi .bin/.cue for PC Engine CD images.  

Data tracks, whether in the .bin, .iso or .img formats, must use the MODE1/2352 data sector format as stated in the accompanying .cue sheet file.  The TED Pro will not load images using the MODE1/2048 data sector format.  While this is not an issue with redump.org images, which all use the MODE1/2352 format, some translations use the less-ideal MODE1/2048 format.  In this case you should follow the procedure described here to convert the images properly into ones the TED Pro can run.

CD image compatibility with the TED Pro is excellent as of firmware v1.04, so long as you are using redump images or CDs imaged with the approved redump tools or ImgBurn.  Relatively few issues remain with games working properly at this point.

With an original CD console or add-on, all games had to share the backup memory.  The TED Pro gives each game, whether HuCard or CD, its own backup memory.  I should note that the CD add-ons and consoles used a super capacitor to retain the contents of the backup SRAM chip, so you had to start your console every week or so to keep the super capacitor energized or you would wipe out your saves.  The TED Pro and other modern EverDrives write the contents of the simulated backup RAM to microSD card when you change the game, making it far more unlikely you will lose your save.  There is no battery on the TED Pro, so the device must either be writing a save file to microSD card immediately or to an EEPROM or Flash memory chip on the card itself.

The PC Engine CD (v2.0 System Card required), TurboGrafx-CD and the Duo consoles supported CD+G discs.  This is not a feature unique to the PC Engine consoles, CD+G was supported by virtually every 1990s CD-based console and add-on except the PlayStation and Dreamcast. CD+G support requires capturing the original subchannel data on the disc (which is where the graphics data is stored), something not captured with a normal .bin/.cue image.  Clone CD's image format, .ccd/.img/.sub is one common way to store information sufficient to represent a CD+G disc properly.  The TED Pro does not appear to support the formats necessary for CD+G support.

If you look at a pinout of a HuCard slot, you will notice that that there is only one audio input pin, Pin 2.  This makes it rather impossible to support stereo sound from the simulated CD drive, shouldn't it?  Krikzz uses the Card Detect pin, Pin 1, which is usually unused, for the second audio channel.  The audio in and card detect pins are also found on the Expansion Port.  For consoles with an Expansion Port Krikzz is selling the EDFX board which plugs into the Expansion Slot and provides not only stereo audio when the TED Pro is used but also RGB output.  

BIOS Options

The TED Pro's Option Menu allows you to select between stereo and audio CD output.  It also has presets for various consoles as they vary somewhat in audio output levels.  You can adjust relative volume levels to taste.  

The RGB output is taken from the analog RGB pins on the Expansion Port, so the extra colors provided by the composite video output will not be present.  The RGB quality is excellent, I cannot see any "jailbars" on my CoreGrafx console and I have not installed the jailbars fix yet.  The RGB port is a Genesis mini-DIN, so HD RetroVision Component cables work like a charm.  This is very important for us in the US where RGB was very rare but component was common in higher quality early 2000s CRTs. Because the Expansion Port includes the internally generated composite video signal on its pins the EDFX AV port also supports composite video using Genesis cables, so you can use the EDFX with all TVs.  

Without a EDFX board the CD audio will only be heard in mono.  CD audio cannot be heard via the RF port of an original PC Engine or TurboGrafx-16 if for some reason you'd want to try that, all NEC's CD options provided composite AV output.  You can use the AV port on the CoreGrafx consoles for CD audio output but the output will be in mono.  The video from the EDFX and AV output on the CoreGrafx cannot be used at the same time with good color from both, the console was not designed to power both at the same time plus a flash cart.  

The only real issue I have with the TED Pro's audio is that it is noisy.  Accessing the microSD card, which can often be noticed via the LED that lights up on the TED Pro, results in the output of "thinking noise" as the microSD card is accessed. There is also an audible low buzz when music is quiet or not playing in CD games, but I do not know if the console would exhibit the same buzz with a real CD-ROM drive attached.  The TED v2.x did not have this issue but did not use the audio input pins.  Some cards, like SanDisk, are noisier than others.  I use a PNY 128GiB microSD card which is less noisy than my SanDisk cards.  Others TED Pro users have reported good results with Transcend cards, but I bought the one Joe Redifier (Game Sack) used in his review video and it would not work at all for me in the TED Pro.  I would suggest not using the highest performing microSD cards in this case.  

Custom Theme

Price, Competition & Conclusion

At $220, the TED Pro is among the most pricey of Krikzz' current offerings, but for that price you are getting not only a flash cart but also an optical drive emulator.  The TED v2 is still for sale for $89, so if you only have a Duo console then you really need to ask yourself if save states is really worth the extra cost.  Both TerraOnion products plug into the Expansion Port, so they do not work at all with Duos, the Handhelds or the Shuttle.  The EDFX costs $50 when purchased standalone but you do save $10 if you buy it from Krikzz directly when bundled with the TED Pro.  

I do not own either TerraOnion product, so I cannot comment on them from personal experience.  I can say that the TED Pro offers a lot of features for its price point compared to those devices.  I would observe that despite a certain recent, highly traumatic event, Krikzz' has been able to keep his products in stock with far better availability than TerraOnion.  I ordered mine on May 29 and it arrived on June 14.  While the Super HD System 3 Pro provides HDMI output, it is limited to 720p and I prefer playing my retro consoles on CRTs.  I also do not like TerraOnion's practice of tying firmware updates to specific device serial numbers.  Anyone can download a Krikzz firmware.

For an owner of a PC Engine, Core Grafx I & II, TurboGrafx-16 the TED Pro is a very, very good flash cart and optical drive emulator.  Combined with the EDFX it can make your console really shine without having to mod your system internally.  The original PC Engine was an RF-only console but under the hood its hardware is just as capable as its successors.  Given that CD-ROM drives tend to not work well 35 years after they were made and NEC used poor quality capacitors on them, the TED Pro is an excellent way to enjoy the many great CD-ROM titles on original hardware.