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Analogue 3D

analogue.co

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Re: Analogue 3D

#71

Post by sbarre »

belthesar wrote: post #67
sbarre wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 syst…

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

> It absolutely can.

Cool, I have bsnes running on my PC, where do I plug in the cart? ;-)

You misunderstood my point there, which is probably my fault for not being clear but I was comparing the software emulator to the complete hardware device provided by Analogue.

Someone else mentioned the Polymega which is a device that runs software emulators but has physical interfaces for carts, which is probably more in line with what you're thinking about.

Thanks for sharing the rest of the details, it was informative!

Re: Analogue 3D

#72

Post by MenhirMike »

tombert wrote: post #68
MenhirMike wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ab…

The "100% compatility in every region" is definitely one hell of a claim for them to make. I think I also saw some emulator issues with Mario Kart 64 where one of the track billboards was actually showing a real-time 3D scene, which didn't render in some emulators.

If they can pull it off, it would be a massive achievement, even though I personally can't think of a single N64 game I'd actually still want to play personally.

Re: Analogue 3D

#73

Post by tombert »

MenhirMike wrote: post #72
tombert wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ab…

The "100% compatility in every region" is definitely one hell of a claim for them to make. I think I also saw some emulator issues with Mario Kart 64 where one of the track billboards was actually showing a real-time 3D scene, which didn't render in some emulators. If they can pull it off, it would be a massive achievement, even though I personally can't think of a single N64 game I'd actually still want to play pers…

In regards to Mario Kart, I believe that was exploiting a trick in the N64 to effectively use the second buffer from double-buffering as an image on the billboard; honestly kind of clever. I haven't tested it myself, but I seem to recall AngryLion on RetroArch fixes that particular bug.

Honestly, I do think the N64 is definitely a mixed bag; there's some real gems on there (Super Mario 64, Zelda Ocarina of Time, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Banjo Kazooie, PilotWings 64, Perfect Dark), but I think pretty much all of the excellent games have more or less made it to the Virtual Console or Switch Online thing.

However, there are a few games on the N64 that never really made it to "legendary" status, and as such never got any real updates/modern ports, but are still worth checking out. Space Station Silicon Valley, for example, is a very unique and interesting game that's a lot of fun to mess around with, and the only "port" that got after the N64 was a terrible one on the PS1. The N64 was one of the earliest (popular) 3D-first consoles, and as such there's a lot of interesting experimentation going on that I do think is genuinely worth checking out.

That said, it's kind of hard to recommend the N64 to anyone; for every Mario 64 or Banjo Kazooie, you have three or four extremely bland mascot platformers (e.g. Gex 3D) or uninspired racing games. It's an extremely mixed bag.

Re: Analogue 3D

#74

Post by MenhirMike »

ehaliewicz2 wrote: post #65
sbarre wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't know how the Polymega works, but for the example the Hyperkin Retron or the Atari 2600+ are "DOM Dumpers": You put in the cartridge, the system dumps the EEPROMs to RAM, and then plays them.

The issue is that if you have a cartridge with any custom chips in it, they won't work because the software doesn't actually connect the cartridge to the emulated system. It's possible to built in heuristics to detect a known game (e.g., if I detect Pitfall 2 on the 2600, I can tell the emulator to emulate the video/sound chip on the cartridge), but if I have a homebrew cartridge, I'm out of luck.

This is especially common on NES and SNES games, there were so many custom chips around, some used on only 1 game (e.g., the DSP2 chip on SNES Dungeon Master), though other consoles also occasionally used it (like Virtua Racer on the Genesis, or as mentioned, Pitfall 2 on the Atari 2600).

With a hardware-based emulation, it's possible to electrically connect the cartridge to the system and achieve full compatibility (assuming the hardware emulation is correct), but there's AFAIK no software emulator that can be fully coupled to a cartridge connector.

So, not sure what would happen if I grab a SNES cartridge with a DSP2 chip (aka. Dungeon Master) and flash my own EEPROM onto the game - would the Polymega work for that or not?

Re: Analogue 3D

#75

Post by Bluecobra »

bane wrote: post #46

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 ov…

Yeah it seems like N64 is an odd choice considering that the disc drives in 32-bit consoles are getting up there in age and more failure prone than a cartridge system.

Re: Analogue 3D

#76

Post by afloyd »

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 :(

That's definitely an 8BitDo controller, although not of a make currently available. Analogue has previously used 8BitDo controllers, and it features the star and pixel-heart most of not all current 8BitDo controllers use. Hopefully 8BitDo will release a version that works with PC!

Re: Analogue 3D

#77

Post by pomstazlesa »

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…

Pocket is still an emulator and not exactly cycle accurate.

https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/GBA_Tests

Re: Analogue 3D

#78

Post by daniel-thompson »

dmonitor wrote: post #63
vessenes wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can you elaborate on this a bit? I'm not too familiar with this scene but I'd like to get one, and not the crappy $14.99 version at the local big box retailer.

Re: Analogue 3D

#79

Post by Cthulhu_ »

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...

I think this is becoming fairly normal, it's similar to the Playdate; they don't take orders, they take pre-orders, and only once they have enough pre-orders will they actually file an order at the manufacturers. I'm sure this is how most "niche electronics" parties operate.
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