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Criticizing Analogue for saying "no emulation" is a bit unfair. Everyone knows that emulation colloquially means "software emulation." It's really just finding

Criticizing Analogue for saying "no emulation" is a bit unfair. Everyone knows that emulation colloquially means "software emulation." It's really just finding the smallest thing on which to attack them, while seemingly claiming a legitimate basis for that attack. Every company has to do marketing. Marketing is part of the equation for success. If Analogue has bad marketing you probably wouldn't even know about them. There are hundreds of obscure retro hardware projects that are still yet unknown. It seems you are just penalizing them for making an effort at being successful. The reality is that Analogue makes quality products and sell them at a reasonable price. People get mad at them because their production capacity is low. Try building a hardware company yourself with a niche market, then tell me how easy it is to do inventory management. It's not their fault their products are so good that there is huge demand for them in the secondary market. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. That really shows there is an unfair bias against them. By the way, I really like the MiSTer project but it does not support hardware cartridges. Analogue does. When MiSTer supports real media then it will be a viable alternative. For now it doesn't and Analogue fills that niche.

soganess 5y ago
I really want to second this. We wouldn't say ASIC wifi chips are "emulating wifi"... What is the real difference between an ASIC and an FPGA... Write once vs write many?
- CJefferson 5y ago
  WiFi is a spec, with different implementations, they don't emulate each other. I can find various references to "emulating" soundblaster cards with an FPGA, which feels more applicable.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
vmception 5y ago
It also specifies “fpga eliminates many of the problems with software emulation” on the website posted here Gamer yells at screen, more at 11
CJefferson 5y ago
I have no idea where the idea that emulation means "software emulation" comes from. Emulation just means "to imitate another system". People aren't getting mad because they can't get one -- I don't want one. They get mad because they act like FPGAs are magic fairy dust, when really it's all code, just at different levels. They aren't fully simulating the chips down to the gate level -- that would be "no emulation", but would also violate copyright so that isn't how it works. Using FPGA doesn't make the emulation fundamentally better -- there has been various bugs found on the SNES emulation of the Analogue. They get fixed of course.
- CyberRabbi 5y ago
  > Emulation just means "to imitate another system" Ah yes, I've heard this numerous times. Suddenly when it comes to criticizing Analogue, all the specific context around the term "emulation" in computing is conveniently ignored. It's a totally general word! Let's just ignore the 40 years or more of computing jargon around it. > Using FPGA doesn't make the emulation fundamentally better Actually it does. You can run legacy software with zero-latency and cycle-accuracy at a fraction of the cost and power required than you would be able to if you used software to emulate the underlying system. BSNES requires a 3Ghz ~$300 dollar CPU to run games accurately, using FPGAs you can do the same at a fraction of the cost and clock speed. Not to mention, there will always be some latency with a software technique. Please don't counter this argument by questioning the meaning of "better."
  - jug 5y ago
    These are upsides with FPGA emulation. Downside is that verilog devs are scarce and developing these cores are hard, so emulation quality sometimes suffer as a result. But I guess this is only a problem depending on the systems Analogue is primarily targeting.
  - CJefferson 5y ago
    Who are all the people who were calling hardware 'emulagion' something different? The reason we (or at least I) didn't use "emulate" for hardware was because people weren't using FPGAs for emulation. We don't need new names for everything when done on an FPGA, when it is still (whatever you want to call it ...simulating?), as opposed to a pure gate-by-gate recreation, which Analogue isn't, which is obvious from its simulation errors, which are often similar to those that appear on traditional emulators like bsnes. Yes, I agree FPGAs let you use much lower power requirements than a PC, but what I disagree with is, at the moment, the accuracy of the experience is better than a high spec PC running bsnes. The authors of bsnes and analogue even agreed with this in the past, sharing I formation about how to increase accuracy in both directions.

soganess 5y ago

I really want to second this. We wouldn't say ASIC wifi chips are "emulating wifi"... What is the real difference between an ASIC and an FPGA... Write once vs write many?

CJefferson 5y ago
WiFi is a spec, with different implementations, they don't emulate each other. I can find various references to "emulating" soundblaster cards with an FPGA, which feels more applicable.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

vmception 5y ago

It also specifies “fpga eliminates many of the problems with software emulation” on the website posted here Gamer yells at screen, more at 11

CJefferson 5y ago

I have no idea where the idea that emulation means "software emulation" comes from. Emulation just means "to imitate another system". People aren't getting mad because they can't get one -- I don't want one. They get mad because they act like FPGAs are magic fairy dust, when really it's all code, just at different levels. They aren't fully simulating the chips down to the gate level -- that would be "no emulation", but would also violate copyright so that isn't how it works. Using FPGA doesn't make the emulation fundamentally better -- there has been various bugs found on the SNES emulation of the Analogue. They get fixed of course.

CyberRabbi 5y ago
> Emulation just means "to imitate another system" Ah yes, I've heard this numerous times. Suddenly when it comes to criticizing Analogue, all the specific context around the term "emulation" in computing is conveniently ignored. It's a totally general word! Let's just ignore the 40 years or more of computing jargon around it. > Using FPGA doesn't make the emulation fundamentally better Actually it does. You can run legacy software with zero-latency and cycle-accuracy at a fraction of the cost and power required than you would be able to if you used software to emulate the underlying system. BSNES requires a 3Ghz ~$300 dollar CPU to run games accurately, using FPGAs you can do the same at a fraction of the cost and clock speed. Not to mention, there will always be some latency with a software technique. Please don't counter this argument by questioning the meaning of "better."
- jug 5y ago
  These are upsides with FPGA emulation. Downside is that verilog devs are scarce and developing these cores are hard, so emulation quality sometimes suffer as a result. But I guess this is only a problem depending on the systems Analogue is primarily targeting.
- CJefferson 5y ago
  Who are all the people who were calling hardware 'emulagion' something different? The reason we (or at least I) didn't use "emulate" for hardware was because people weren't using FPGAs for emulation. We don't need new names for everything when done on an FPGA, when it is still (whatever you want to call it ...simulating?), as opposed to a pure gate-by-gate recreation, which Analogue isn't, which is obvious from its simulation errors, which are often similar to those that appear on traditional emulators like bsnes. Yes, I agree FPGAs let you use much lower power requirements than a PC, but what I disagree with is, at the moment, the accuracy of the experience is better than a high spec PC running bsnes. The authors of bsnes and analogue even agreed with this in the past, sharing I formation about how to increase accuracy in both directions.