Using the Bliss-Box on any console.

The Bridge is a new product in development. This device will allow you to connect the Bliss-Box to a console of your choice. Just like the 4-Play the Bridge will have cables for connecting to various consoles. From usb based consoles to early retro consoles. The Bridge will get its power form the console and connect to the 4-Play’s existing USB port. Interestingly, no USB data will take place over this connection, as it merely serves as a convenient means to connect the two devices. There will be matching firmwares for USB based consoles. This is because USB is static and thus you can not make change on the fly. Fortunately this is not the case for none USB gaming consoles, so this one firmware will work on those.

Once the bridge is connected to the console it will begin looking for a 4-Play in single mode, or a Gamer-Pro. Once found, it starts communication and asks for the button payload. There is no USB poll frames in this case, it just gets the data as fast as possible (at the speed of the controller) and then sends the data to the Bridge. The Bridge will talk to the console at the request of the console whether the data has been refreshed or not.

In the eyes of lag, it is up to the connected console and/or the controller plus data transfer time (depends on size). For example, the NES controller will take around 50 us to get its payload, the payload is 1 byte (10 us to send) and the console asks for data every 1ms. That is 50 us + 10 us to prepare and send the data. So while the Bliss-Box is waiting for the console to ask for data, it is talking to the controller at a 50us poll rate. When the console is finally ready, it takes 10us to send the data. As you can see no time is spent at the Bliss-Box's expense.

For those that do not know, an average gamer cannot feel the difference at 15ms poll rates. After all most monitors update the screen every 16.6 ms. Now a 32ms wait will most certainly cause the perception of lag. There are two forms of controller lag. 1) appending, and 2) during. During is not much of a concern. This is where the lag happens in a video frame. Thus, a lag of 8ms will never even be seen as the monitors again, are around 16.6 themselves. Appending lag is a bit of an issue. That is where the lag takes place at the end of a frame causing the response to be delayed 1 frame. In the case of a monitor at 16.6 that means you will not feel the response until 34.2 ms. This is possible in PC gaming because the poll rate of a controller is not tied to the video rate. Consoles, on the other hand, are tied. So in this case it is not an issue since both polling controllers and monitors refresh rates are in sync. The console tends to be 1 or 2 ms but this changes quite a bit from console to console and the controllers also seems to be about the same (most under 1 ms). The Bridge and Bliss-Box communication is about 10us per byte. A us is 1000th of a ms. So, 100 bytes would be 1ms and no controller has 10 bytes of data to send ;) Point. this will not add any addition lag to the OEM hardware.

Where is the state of the Bridge? Happy to report the board/chip has been chosen and the firm begone. Keep tabs on the blog to here more.

Bliss-Box Team.