Can't wait to not be able to buy one of these for the next five years.
this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2023
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Even if it ever was in stock, it would be prohibitively expensive. I’ll just stick to emulating.
Right? Like, doesn't dolphin already do this?
There's a difference between emulation and what Analogue does. Analogue's products actually implement the hardware of their respective consoles in FPGAs. (Also, what Kecessa said)
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N64 emulation is notoriously bad though, if this actually works as advertised I'd consider picking one up, even with a relatively high price tag
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4K output alone doesn’t provide much (if any) benefit. The article (and I assume the company as well) says nothing more. For this to mean anything, they need to talk about the console doing something to internally render at a higher resolution or talk about what upscaling techniques it will use to go from whatever internal resolution the N64 runs at (480?) to 4K.
Putting 4K in the title seems clickbaity, considering there is “no there there”.
Edit: not accusing OP of clickbait, just the article.
It will probably just be an upscaler. Remember Analogue makes purists machines that works exactly as the original hardware, warts and all. So no emulation. The upscaler is in there because 4K TVs still have shitty built-in upscalers that can’t scale anything properly that isn’t 1080p
It'll almost certainly render internally at a higher resolution. The Analogue team's past projects have been pretty technically advanced, their Super NT (SNES) does 1080p for comparison.
I may have used the wrong term. When I talk about internal resolution vs upscalers, I’m trying to differentiate between what resolution the games are initially rendered at by the “console” vs post processing what comes out of the console and upscaling there. From what I understand, many PS1 emulators are able to actually render polygons in game at higher resolutions so that you get crisp 3d graphics. I think N64 emulators can do the same (but I’ve never really dug in to those).
Thinking more, since this is not an emulator, it seems unlikely that it could increase the render resolution (but we can hope). That just leaves upscalers to increase output resolution. This is what the Super NT does - which makes sense for sprite-based games/systems anyway.
Yeah the games are still going to be using their original graphics, etc, so you'll have Mario 64's Mario's like 1000 polygons... in glorious 4k resolution.
It will look higher fidelity but it's not gonna be a modern looking game or anything. There are some other disadvantages of using a modern system like this, but tbh unless you have a full 1990s rig (CRT and all) it's gonna look different.
They'll probably have a more faithful reproduction mode, too.
I'm assuming that 4K output will most likely be important for the CRT filters. Particularly once you start recreating the curvature, you quickly start generating very obvious Moiré patterns if the output resolution isn't much higher than the input resolution.
Why don’t they instead invest the money to make a pro CRT filter in that device? Games from that era look so much better on CRT TVs
Their website seems to mention that it will have this.
A reimagining of the N64. 4K resolution. Original Display Modes. Reference quality recreations of specific model CRT’s and PVM’s.
The N64 in particular had the big advancement of hardware-backed anti-aliasing, but also the unfortunate characteristic of forcing it quite strongly on every scene. Games look way less blocky than their PS1 counterparts, but unless you're emulating on a really high resolution or playing on an actual CRT, primitive antialiasing on such a low resolution can make N64 games look like you've covered your TV on Vaseline.
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Won’t be buying one but this is a VERY idea.
I'm feeling VERY about this as well!
Why purchase this when emulators and mods exist?
This device is FPGA, and not emulation. The chip recreates itself to act exactly as the N64's chips would run. The benefits are that you get less input lag, more accurate gameplay, and you can use your original cartridges/controllers in a plug and play set up.
This doesn't replace emulation, but if you are serious about playing older console games, Analogue's FPGA products are a great premium solution.
Analogue’s marketing really wants to push this idea, but FPGA is emulation. It just uses a low level approach for cycle accuracy. This is similar to software emulators that focus on accuracy, like BSNES.
FPGA is technically emulation but not in the same sense as BSNES. BSNES is software emulation, requires a beefy computer for complete accuracy. The SuperNT gives perfect accuracy on a less than 2GHz ARM processor by using the exact same chip logic as the original Snes, so it theoretically is a SNES. BSNES uses reverse engineering with its own code to emulate snes hardware onto x86 architecture. Analogues marketing is fine the way it is because they are correct in what they advertise, the product is niche and targets retro collectors with physical collections.
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This is not even out and I'm foreseeing it is going to be very overpriced (for me).
4K mud, jaggies, and pop-in with shallow draw distances?
You sonava bitch I’m in.
That is what they're promising, yeah.
The jaggies will be a little less pronounced in 4k i guess.
Me over here with my old N64 I bought in 1997 with a crusty Chinese retrotink knockoff...
Fascinating how no inkling of this, then Robert pulls off what was thought impossible on the DE-10nano/MiSTer FPGA, and lo-and-behind, Analogue is here to ~~cash in~~ "save the day".
Just buy a MiSTer and support Robert Peip's Patreon, instead.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
It will also include “Original Display Modes featuring reference quality recreations of specific model CRTs and PVMs” for the purists out there, along with Bluetooth support and four controller ports.
Analogue isn’t even showing the hardware yet — right now, we just have these brief glimpses of what appears to be the console, as well as the wireless 8BitDo controller that’s launching alongside it.
Analogue has a strong history of releasing high-quality recreations of consoles like the NES, SNES, and Sega Genesis, making it possible to play old cartridges on modern televisions.
Most recently, the company turned its attention to portable gaming with the sleek Analogue Pocket.
But Analogue says this shouldn’t be a problem because it uses a solution called field-programmable gate array (FPGA) technology that essentially lets it function like the original hardware.
More details on the Analogue 3D are coming, he notes, including not only the hardware, price, and release information but also additional features.
The original article contains 306 words, the summary contains 158 words. Saved 48%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
No openFPGA support? That's sad, but I guess it means more sales for Everdrive and other flash carts.
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