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Analogue 3D

analogue.co

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Re: Analogue 3D

#41

Post by edude03 »

smusamashah wrote: post #34

I have recently bought a `Miyoo Mini Plus` for about £70 (inc taxes) and it is able to run most old console games up to PS1 just fine and the build quality is good too. It is linux based and community has made an alternate OS/UI https://github.com/OnionUI/Onion with custom scripts, webserver and support of many other systems etc. I couldn't find the price for Analogue, but it will probably be too expensive in compari…

It's not the same though, the Miyoo and similar products are software emulation, the analogue series use FPGAs to emulate the hardware

Re: Analogue 3D

#42

Post by jrm4 »

Almondsetat wrote: post #20
jrm4 wrote: post #4

This is one of those products where my first reaction is "Well, that's silly who would pay for that" And then I remember how wrong I was about e.g. the candy-colored iMacs. Let's see where this goes.

Are you seriously comparing a general purpose computer that was genuinely new at the time and had silly colors with basically the yearly reproposition of the same useless old repackaged emulator catered to nostalgic people?

Um, yes?

I don't even get what you're trying to argue here, but I remembering that "I'm the kind of person who doesn't care much about the aesthetics of computing devices, and while this sentiment is common among SOME geeks and others, it's nowhere near universal. LOTS of people everywhere are into colorful stuff they can buy."

Re: Analogue 3D

#43

Post by jwells89 »

jrm4 wrote: post #4

This is one of those products where my first reaction is "Well, that's silly who would pay for that" And then I remember how wrong I was about e.g. the candy-colored iMacs. Let's see where this goes.

Honestly, I’d be a total sucker for new fruit-iMac-inspired electronics by major manufacturers if they existed. I bought a 500 million edition DualShock 4 controller a few years ago simply because of its striking resemblance to the indigo iMac I used as a kid.

Re: Analogue 3D

#44

Post by bertman »

vessenes wrote: post #36

Oooh, this is exciting. I have two Analogue pockets, and really like the device. For reference, the Analogue pitch is: frame accurate / CPU cycle accurate classic gaming device simulation using a hefty FPGA. The proposal is that this feels better / different from emulators. The pockets have some 'sugar' around simulating CRT colors and bleed for a more authentic experience. All this is generally my experience with th…

>I'm also very curious to see what they do on controllers

Here's a brightened and sharpened version of the controller's teaser image from their site:

https://i.imgur.com/iIpQzh6.png

So definitely no weirdo wing-shape :(

Re: Analogue 3D

#45

Post by vessenes »

bertman wrote: post #44
vessenes wrote: post #36

Oooh, this is exciting. I have two Analogue pockets, and really like the device. For reference, the Analogue pitch is: frame accurate / CPU cycle accurate classic gaming device simulation using a hefty FPGA. The proposal is that this feels better / different from emulators. The pockets have some 'sugar' around simulating CRT colors and bleed for a more authentic experience. All this is generally my experience with th…

>I'm also very curious to see what they do on controllers Here's a brightened and sharpened version of the controller's teaser image from their site: https://i.imgur.com/iIpQzh6.png So definitely no weirdo wing-shape :(

The pockets accept og controllers by wire, since they read the pins as a side effect of the architecture. My son plays smash fairly competitively and he tells me high quality gamecube competition controllers cost as much as $500. Will be interesting to see what the 'optimal' aftermarket solution is.

Re: Analogue 3D

#46

Post by bane »

The renewed interest in the N64 is very interesting considering how relatively "unpopular" it was during its lifetime. There's also not a huge number of great games on the system (IMHO) compared to its competitors. A top-50 list is not exactly full of all-time classics until you hit maybe the top-15.

The aesthetic of the console also has aged very poorly, mostly due to the incredibly tiny texture memory leading to overfiltered smudgy blurry textures all over the place.

My understanding of things from the MiSTER project is that the FPGA hardware used there is just maybe enough to be a PS1, Saturn, and N64, but just barely, and maybe not at all. If this was a 3D 32-bit multi-system thing with upgraded texture support, and not only CRT emulation, but also rendering upscaling, we might be talking. Some PS1 games at 1080p with upgraded textures and fixes to the texture warping problem look almost as good as early-mid stage PS2 games and sharper. Some games like the WipeOut series absolutely shine in high-res and are more playable since you aren't trying to figure out if a blob of 6 pixels at 240i is another racer or a wall.

Re: Analogue 3D

#47

Post by Almondsetat »

mattl wrote: post #33
Almondsetat wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you seriously comparing a general purpose computer that was genuinely new at the time and had silly colors with basically the yearly reproposition of the same useless old repackaged emulator catered to nostalgic people?

Did someone else release or announce an N64 FPGA device? I didn't hear anything about it.

what difference does it make that it's an FPGA?

Re: Analogue 3D

#48

Post by MenhirMike »

avidphantasm wrote: post #37
MenhirMike wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I did see, people did receive their pockets and some of the accessories, so yeah, it looks like they are actually working through the backlog. That said, I'll believe the Duo when it arrives at my doorstep :D

Got my Pocket in August. Well worth the wait. Have patience.

Oh, I'm sure it will be, they've always been worth the wait :)

Re: Analogue 3D

#49

Post by [deleted] »

mattl wrote: post #27
elipsitz wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, it’s not a software emulator, but it’s still an emulator. And Analogue’s use of “No Emulation” is dishonest: it implies that it’s somehow inherently better than a software emulator, which it isn’t. E.g. you can have an inaccurate FPGA-based emulator, and a highly accurate software-based emulator.

Where's the emulation? If you program an FPGA to reproduce a system, there's no emulation... you might have bugs but there are bugs in hardware too.

[deleted]

Re: Analogue 3D

#50

Post by deelowe »

mattl wrote: post #27
elipsitz wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, it’s not a software emulator, but it’s still an emulator. And Analogue’s use of “No Emulation” is dishonest: it implies that it’s somehow inherently better than a software emulator, which it isn’t. E.g. you can have an inaccurate FPGA-based emulator, and a highly accurate software-based emulator.

Where's the emulation? If you program an FPGA to reproduce a system, there's no emulation... you might have bugs but there are bugs in hardware too.

> If you program an FPGA to reproduce a system, there's no emulation...

Without seeing the code, it's impossible to know where Analog's implementation falls on the spectrum of software emulation vs hardware simulation. There is nothing magical about FPGAs that automatically makes anything developed with them a 1:1 representation of real hardware. In fact, there are plenty of instances where the FPGA version of a particular console is literally just a representation of a popular emulator only in verilog/vhdl. In many instances, even the best FPGA implementations of some systems are still only simulating system level behavior. Off the top of my head, one famously difficult case is audio, where many chips have analog circuitry that cannot be fully simulated.

> you might have bugs but there are bugs in hardware too.

Funny you mention this. "Bugs" are actually where this sort of thing starts to matter. Speed runners will exploit timing, precision, overflow and similar bugs which allow them to do all sorts of things. A system that has been fully simulated will exhibit the same hardware/software bugs as the original device. Another example would be fighting games where input and frame timing must be 100% accurate at high levels of play.

Going back to this particular case, I don't believe there is any possibility that this is a 1:1 reimplementation of the n64. Though I'm happy to be proven wrong.

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