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> 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 con

> 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.

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.