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Analogue 3D
- perrohunter 3y agoI just hope it's compatible with the Analogue
- mas-ev 3y agoInteresting. Given the prices of some of the upscalers, I imagine they will charge quite a bit for this device.
- whateveracct 3y agoThe Eon Super 64 is like $150-ish and works perfectly. I guess you need an original N64 too. But the Super 64 + an Everdrive was so worth it.
- jrm4 3y agoThis is one of those products where my first reaction is "Well, that's silly who would pay for that" And then I remember how wrong I was about e.g. the candy-colored iMacs. Let's see where this goes.
- agotterer 3y agoI’m not much of modern gamer but have very fond memories of playing N64 as a kid. Just last night I was looking for an N64 hardware emulator which could connect to modern TVs that could play in a digital format. I came across Analogue in my search, but this hadn’t been announced yet. If the price is reasonable I would be interested in buying.
- Almondsetat 3y agoAre you seriously comparing a general purpose computer that was genuinely new at the time and had silly colors with basically the yearly reproposition of the same useless old repackaged emulator catered to nostalgic people?
- mattl 3y agoDid someone else release or announce an N64 FPGA device? I didn't hear anything about it.
- Almondsetat 3y agowhat difference does it make that it's an FPGA?
- jrm4 3y agoUm, yes? I don't even get what you're trying to argue here, but I remembering that "I'm the kind of person who doesn't care much about the aesthetics of computing devices, and while this sentiment is common among SOME geeks and others, it's nowhere near universal. LOTS of people everywhere are into colorful stuff they can buy."
- goosedragons 3y agoEnough people to make it worthwhile. It won't be a massive mass market product like the NES Classic but like their past releases they will sell what they make. N64 has pretty garbage video out sans mods with IIRC no RGB support on any model. Having a nice 4K N64 that works out of the box will definitely appeal to some retro collectors.
- msk-lywenn 3y agoThe french, not european, french n64 has almost RGB built in! The motherboard was designed to and the pads are there for a few resistors and transistors. If you do add them and use an RGB cable from, say, a french super nintendo, you get the best analog RGB output there is on original n64. Well, 50Hz RGB. I still love mine https://web.archive.org/web/20190406032415/http://pakupakustory.blogspot.com:80/2011/12/docteur-switch-en-direct-de-latelier-le.html https://web.archive.org/web/20190406032415/http://pakupakust...
- donatj 3y agoWhat's funny is my immediate reaction is "Shut up and take my money!" The people who have nostalgia for this sort of stuff happen to also be the people the age where nostalgia takes hold and disposable income becomes available.
- jwells89 3y agoHonestly, I’d be a total sucker for new fruit-iMac-inspired electronics by major manufacturers if they existed. I bought a 500 million edition DualShock 4 controller a few years ago simply because of its striking resemblance to the indigo iMac I used as a kid.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- yuck39 3y agoThere 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/1711847200727368033 https://twitter.com/RetroGameCorps/status/171184720072736803...
- MenhirMike 3y agoI'm still waiting for any news at all about the "Available in 2023" Duo that I pre-ordered Day 1, but yeah: They did always deliver in the past. Eventually. And it's generally been worth it, except that if you were hoping that "Future Analogue Product" support on the DAC means "Pocket Dock".
- erinnh 3y agoThey mentioned it again today. Duo will ship in 2023. Pocket Adapters are "on target to ship by end of 2023" Analogue OS 2.0 will release by end of 2023. With display mode support for openFPGA cores.
- nacs 3y agoSo 3 backordered products launching in the next 2 months? They're going to have a busy Christmas holiday..
- MenhirMike 3y agoFrom what I did see, people did receive their pockets and some of the accessories, so yeah, it looks like they are actually working through the backlog. That said, I'll believe the Duo when it arrives at my doorstep :D
- avidphantasm 3y ago
- elipsitz 3y agoAnalogue makes some really cool, well-engineered products. But saying there’s “No Emulation” because it uses an FPGA is blatantly false. If it’s imitating original hardware, without being the original hardware, it’s an emulator.
- tibbon 3y agoI'm not sure I agree. Arduinos made by other companies aren't emulations. They can still be true implementations and feature compatible.
- gcr 3y agoWhen I hear "emulation," I think "in software, a la Turing-completeness." It's like saying a Volkswagen "emulates" a Model-T. It drives on the same roads, but the internal implementation is quite different.
- elipsitz 3y agoWhether it’s a program running on a CPU that interprets software written for the original device, or a configuration of look-up-tables in an FPGA that can interpret software written for the original device, it’s still a system that intends to exactly reproduce the behavior of another one. I’d call that emulation.
- mattl 3y agoIt's not emulation in software, it's hardware reproduction in software so the distinction matters for video games.
- elipsitz 3y agoSure, it’s not a software emulator, but it’s still an emulator. And Analogue’s use of “No Emulation” is dishonest: it implies that it’s somehow inherently better than a software emulator, which it isn’t. E.g. you can have an inaccurate FPGA-based emulator, and a highly accurate software-based emulator.
- gcr 3y agoThe 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.
- markx2 3y agoI 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/ https://openfpga-cores-inventory.github.io/analogue-pocket/
- MenhirMike 3y agoNote that the 3D will not support openFPGA (and neither will the Duo), in case that matters to anyone.
- superjan 3y agoIt is not just that details are scant. If you’re unfamiliar with the company, there is little to indicate what they are selling. It kind of defeats the idea of viral marketing.
- mherkender 3y ago3D is one area where the FPGA model of emulation doesn't seem so good. The N64 is pretty low-resolution and low-FPS compared to modern devices, which is grating in 3D even though it has a nostalgic charm in 2D. Maybe it's enough to be able to buy a "new" N64 for some, but I'm skeptical it will be able to overcome the N64's flaws.
- happycube 3y agoYeah... it's about the line where a software emulator (i.e. Dolphin) can be better than the original hardware. Probably a good stopping point for MiSTer (which thanks to some very hard work is making progress on PS1/Saturn/N64) and Analogue.
- smusamashah 3y agoI have recently bought a `Miyoo Mini Plus` for about £70 (inc taxes) and it is able to run most old console games up to PS1 just fine and the build quality is good too. It is linux based and community has made an alternate OS/UI https://github.com/OnionUI/Onion https://github.com/OnionUI/Onion with custom scripts, webserver and support of many other systems etc. I couldn't find the price for Analogue, but it will probably be too expensive in comparison.
- edude03 3y agoIt's not the same though, the Miyoo and similar products are software emulation, the analogue series use FPGAs to emulate the hardware
- vessenes 3y agoOooh, 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 the devices. They feel very like my memory of childhood games, much more so than play in emulation. And I love it. 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 could afford to make a cleaner and easier software path. At any rate, I will order an N64 capable Analogue console as soon as I can - the idea of having an N64/(PS1? Saturn?) device that will last in my house is irresistible. I'm also very curious to see what they do on controllers - the N64 had a weirdo wing-shaped controller, and using other control layouts for N64 games seems tough to me. Should be fun!
- bertman 3y ago>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 https://i.imgur.com/iIpQzh6.png So definitely no weirdo wing-shape :(
- vessenes 3y agoThe 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.
- dmonitor 3y agoI 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.
- bane 3y agoThe 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 overfiltered smudgy blurry textures all over the place. My understanding of things from the MiSTER project is that the FPGA hardware used there is just maybe enough to be a PS1, Saturn, and N64, but just barely, and maybe not at all. If this was a 3D 32-bit multi-system thing with upgraded texture support, and not only CRT emulation, but also rendering upscaling, we might be talking. Some PS1 games at 1080p with upgraded textures and fixes to the texture warping problem look almost as good as early-mid stage PS2 games and sharper. Some games like the WipeOut series absolutely shine in high-res and are more playable since you aren't trying to figure out if a blob of 6 pixels at 240i is another racer or a wall.
- Bluecobra 3y agoYeah 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.
- Willish42 3y agoIMO, 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 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...)