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Analogue 3D

analogue.co

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Re: Analogue 3D

#61

Post by MenhirMike »

markx2 wrote: post #13
gcr wrote: post #8

The details are scant from this product release, but for those who don't know, this company makes the "Analogue Pocket," an FPGA-implemented device capable of playing most Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance games. There's no emulation happening here; everything is implemented in FPGA gates built onto the hardware. Looks like they're advertising a similar implementation of the n64.

I have a Pocket and it's not just GB/GBA. I can play SNES, Megadrive (Genesis), Atari Lynx, NES, SNES and more. Check https://openfpga-cores-inventory.github.io/analogue-pocket/

Note that the 3D will not support openFPGA (and neither will the Duo), in case that matters to anyone.

Re: Analogue 3D

#62

Post by agg23 »

jonhohle wrote: post #58
Almondsetat wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I’m the clone scene FPGA is synonymous with quality and accuracy, regardless of whether that’s true or not.

Latency is what it's all about, but there's some "accuracy" that can be had there by having cycle accurate latency.

Re: Analogue 3D

#63

Post by dmonitor »

vessenes wrote: post #45
bertman wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

I have a lot of familiarity with competitive controllers for Melee, and $500 is definitely the highest end of the field. At that point you're buying a made-to-order controller with a custom PCB, specially calibrated analog components, shell, and other bits of personalization. $40-$100 is about average for a "good" controller.

Re: Analogue 3D

#64

Post by agg23 »

kruuuder wrote: post #60
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…

> That said, the software ecosystem side of these devices feels like a near total disaster; I think it's a combination of legal concerns around copyright for ROMs, and the company's DNA. The amount of work to play, say Zelda on an Analogue Pocket, is akin to jailbreaking an Android phone, circa 2013. Lots of sdcard downloads, firmware checks, custom software tools, arcane paths through the OS software. I think they c…

I'm obviously super biased, but I think the core installation process is nearly as straightforward as it could possibly be without official support. All of the cores are distributed in a way that you can simply unzip the asset to the root of your SD card, and the core is set up and ready to go.

The only part I would really have to complain about is the folder names, particularly for ROMs. For SNES for example, ROMs are stored at `/Assets/snes/common/rom.smc`, where obviously `common` is an annoying addition to the path.

Re: Analogue 3D

#65

Post by ehaliewicz2 »

sbarre wrote: post #57
elipsitz wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue I have is that they’re implying it’s inherently better than software emulation, perhaps because it more accurately reproduces the behavior. But an FPGA emulator isn’t necessarily any more accurate. I think it’s dishonest marketing, and they know it. The low contrast, fine print at the bottom doesn’t make the same claim: > 3. Analogue 3D is not designed using software emulation. It is designed using a specia…

Analogue's devices seem to be widely loved and well regarded both by consumers and reviewers. Are you really just mad about their choice of words? I think it's pretty clear that Analogue's offerings are significantly different than most of the rest of the "retro games" market, and I don't blame them for calling out that difference in a way that's easy for the audience to understand, and to play to their strengths (i.…

>A software emulator cannot run a physical ROM cart, right?

Why not? There's the polymega which is using software emulation and has addons to support running games via cartridges.

Re: Analogue 3D

#66

Post by Willish42 »

IMO, clock accuracy is less important for 3D games than it was for the handful of games that made me prefer the Analogue Pocket (Mother 3 for critical hits, etc.)

I imagine they will be hard-pressed to garner a ton of interest over existing solutions, but if the controller is unparalleled and the CRT filters are really good, who knows.

I also really hope they build support for microphone emulation. I'd love to play https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hey_You,_Pikachu! again without having to secure the special hardware that came with it (have it lying around somewhere but it has not stood well to the test of time...)

Re: Analogue 3D

#67

Post by belthesar »

sbarre wrote: post #57
elipsitz wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue I have is that they’re implying it’s inherently better than software emulation, perhaps because it more accurately reproduces the behavior. But an FPGA emulator isn’t necessarily any more accurate. I think it’s dishonest marketing, and they know it. The low contrast, fine print at the bottom doesn’t make the same claim: > 3. Analogue 3D is not designed using software emulation. It is designed using a specia…

Analogue's devices seem to be widely loved and well regarded both by consumers and reviewers. Are you really just mad about their choice of words? I think it's pretty clear that Analogue's offerings are significantly different than most of the rest of the "retro games" market, and I don't blame them for calling out that difference in a way that's easy for the audience to understand, and to play to their strengths (i.…

Personally, I dislike their use of language here because Analogue is standing on the shoulders of giants that have reverse engineered video game console architecture, largely to be used in software emulation. While an FPGA does not have an operating system, a non-native call stack, and other general purpose computing bits in-between it and the code programming the FPGA, Analogue products are indeed emulating the system.

> A software emulator can not run a physical ROM cart, right?

It absolutely can. The vast majority of emulators do not build this functionality in because some sort of cartridge tool to interface with a computer would be a largely niche device that is easily solved by running an existing dump. Software emulation competitors like those from Retron do include cartridge slots, and those work by dumping the ROM and then running it from temporary space in the emulator of choice. That said, your disc-based system emulators do generally have support for running direct from physical media, because for a good long while, we all had CD and/or DVD drives in our systems.

As for "more accurate", the Analogue Super Nt at release had a plethora of bugs in the FPGA firmware that caused issues with accurate play of titles. Meanwhile, counterparts in Snes9x had solved so many of those issues, albeit still being less "console accurate" than other emulators like bsnes. So, in many ways, the solutions Analogue provides still need more work to truly be better than emulation.

That said, plenty of more causal folks are fine with "good enough", to your point of Analogue being widely loved. The SNES Mini had a handful of games that ran well enough for the vast majority of players, and hyper-accuracy is more of an issue for certain games with esoteric software or additional chips on the cartridge to augment the console's functionality, or for folks that push a game system to the limit like speedrunners.

As a result, I don't think they are bad products by any stretch of the imagination, but I do take umbrage in their marketing tactics. It is both inaccurate, and to some degree disrespectful to those that did the work that made theirs possible.

Re: Analogue 3D

#68

Post by tombert »

MenhirMike wrote: post #56
elipsitz wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I guess it's mostly just wordsmithing. But I don't think it's pedantry: by making the claim that their hardware isn't emulation, it implies that it's somehow better than software emulators. There's just an entirely different set of tradeoffs here, and FPGA emulators are not inherently more accurate than software emulators.

I get it though it just "feels" more real than running a piece of software, and it's cool to be able to play original cartridges and use original peripherals. But indeed, in the end it is a form of emulation, and even if someone is able to re-create the original hardware 1:1 including all the undocumented/buggy/unexpected behavior, I'll leave it open if people actually want that. A lot of us want modern amenities: HD…

> I think the N64 might be in a bit unique situation because all the emulators for it are kinda crap,

I think most emulators are fine for the big "brand name" games like Mario 64 and Zelda Ocarina of Time. I played through both on an emulator without any issues as far as I could tell.

Where most emulators still kind of suck are the later N64 games that really exploit the hardware, like Resident Evil 2's FMV. As of about a year ago, RetroArch with AngryLion actually does emulate that correctly, and I managed to play through most of the game without any issues, it definitely pushes my relatively beefy laptop to its absolute limit, and the only cycle-accurate N64 Emulator that I'm aware of, CEN64, only runs at like 4 fps on my machine.

I too am interested in seeing if the MiSTer can pull it off, because that would definitely work in favor of proper preservation of a lot of the later N64 stuff.

Re: Analogue 3D

#69

Post by hx8 »

yuck39 wrote: post #6

There has been some criticism of Analogue lately from the retro gaming community [1] for continuing to announce and release new products while they remain months behind on fulfilling orders already placed by customers. The consensus seems to be that their products are good but add 4-6 months to whenever you expect to get your order from them. [1]: https://twitter.com/RetroGameCorps/status/171184720072736803...

It's much less risky for Analogue to do manufacturing this way. A lot of physical product companies fail because they have too much capital tied up in inventory. They make good products, charge a premium for them, and have no problem filling up a waiting list.

Re: Analogue 3D

#70

Post by Balooga »

spicyjpeg wrote: post #59
mattl wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 using the same HDL that was used to manufacture the original system then sure, it will behave identically (at least to the extent permitted by the laws of physics). However, if you are reverse engineering the chips and replicating the HDL without being able to peek at their actual circuitry, it is no different from doing the same in a pure software emulator from an accuracy standpoint. The only…

There are differences between the NMOS and CMOS implementations of the Z80. And an FPGA is neither NMOS or CMOS [1].

This is an interesting post describing the hoops one has to jump through to replicate an NMOS chip in an FPGA [2].

[1] https://sinclair.wiki.zxnet.co.uk/wiki/Z80#Differences_betwe...

[2] https://baltazarstudios.com/z80-ground/

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