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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

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.
- smolder 5y ago
  I can't understand your first paragraph, which is apparently arguing that hardware emulation is not emulation? I don't think there is any historical support for limiting use of the term emulation to only software, or excluding their fpga approach, 40 years or otherwise. Analogue appears to be trying to change the definition, or more charitably, didn't know they were using the word wrong in their marketing. What I suspect it comes down to is that marketing around the idea "emulation is bad and we don't use it" is easier than having to communicate the nuance that their type of emulation is better. The exploitation of ambiguity and painting-over of nuance by marketing folks is to me just another one of many ways that marketing practices harm broader society. A similar situation was when Zoom was trying to exploit ambiguity around the meaning of end to end encryption to support their invalid but nice-sounding claim that they used it. In that case the misunderstanding could lead to bigger problems than just annoying some people & causing argument.
- nsxwolf 5y ago
  I have a Mega SG. After years of suffering with dodgy Sega Genesis/Mega Drive emulation I now have a system that is damn near perfect, even better than the real thing in many ways. If software emulation could have given me this, great. But it’s never been able to come close.
haberman 5y ago
> Emulation just means "to imitate another system". Is an AMD CPU an Intel "emulator"? If one piece of hardware aims to be compatible with another, pre-existing piece of hardware, I wouldn't call it an emulator. Maybe an implementation. Sure there can be bugs, and a very advanced software emulator may have better compatibility than a less advanced hardware implementation. But a hardware implementation is fundamentally functioning much more similarly to how the original hardware functioned. Parallel logic gates are quite a different programming paradigm than sequential software.
- CJefferson 5y ago
  Yes, I agree an AMD chip isn't an Intel emulator. However, if we were imagining an intel CPU inside a console like a Super Nintendo or Megadrive, then an "AMD CPU" wouldn't be good enough -- lots of games require bug compatability of undocumented instructions, and exact behaviour in terms of memory access, instruction execution (including how partial instruction execution effects memory + registers). People at Analogue aren't just making something which implements the same instruction set, they have to implement exact behaviour in all ways. Nowadays people don't write games which require that level of compatability, which is why (mostly) games work on both Intel + AMD.

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.
smolder 5y ago
I can't understand your first paragraph, which is apparently arguing that hardware emulation is not emulation? I don't think there is any historical support for limiting use of the term emulation to only software, or excluding their fpga approach, 40 years or otherwise. Analogue appears to be trying to change the definition, or more charitably, didn't know they were using the word wrong in their marketing. What I suspect it comes down to is that marketing around the idea "emulation is bad and we don't use it" is easier than having to communicate the nuance that their type of emulation is better. The exploitation of ambiguity and painting-over of nuance by marketing folks is to me just another one of many ways that marketing practices harm broader society. A similar situation was when Zoom was trying to exploit ambiguity around the meaning of end to end encryption to support their invalid but nice-sounding claim that they used it. In that case the misunderstanding could lead to bigger problems than just annoying some people & causing argument.
nsxwolf 5y ago
I have a Mega SG. After years of suffering with dodgy Sega Genesis/Mega Drive emulation I now have a system that is damn near perfect, even better than the real thing in many ways. If software emulation could have given me this, great. But it’s never been able to come close.

haberman 5y ago

> Emulation just means "to imitate another system". Is an AMD CPU an Intel "emulator"? If one piece of hardware aims to be compatible with another, pre-existing piece of hardware, I wouldn't call it an emulator. Maybe an implementation. Sure there can be bugs, and a very advanced software emulator may have better compatibility than a less advanced hardware implementation. But a hardware implementation is fundamentally functioning much more similarly to how the original hardware functioned. Parallel logic gates are quite a different programming paradigm than sequential software.

CJefferson 5y ago
Yes, I agree an AMD chip isn't an Intel emulator. However, if we were imagining an intel CPU inside a console like a Super Nintendo or Megadrive, then an "AMD CPU" wouldn't be good enough -- lots of games require bug compatability of undocumented instructions, and exact behaviour in terms of memory access, instruction execution (including how partial instruction execution effects memory + registers). People at Analogue aren't just making something which implements the same instruction set, they have to implement exact behaviour in all ways. Nowadays people don't write games which require that level of compatability, which is why (mostly) games work on both Intel + AMD.