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.
The R community misterfpga or fpgagaming is where you get most info (the official forums are amazing too), but it’s really quite simple
Buy a DE10-nano from Mouser or Digikey (stick has stabilized, Yay, but prices have gone WAYYYY up – they used to be $190USD).
With just the base board, you can use most older Arcade cores.
To do anything console-gaming, you need to purchase a RAM module. Misteraddons is where you go for that if your in North America, EU, go through ultimatemister. Get the 128MB. You’ll also need either the official USB hub (works like a daughterboard) or a plain old OTG USB Hub (the official one is more robust). Some people buy a case (there’s 3D printed ones, and there’s fancy aluminum ones), others (like myself) slap the whole thing in an ITX PC case.
Once you assemble the stack, you simply download the misterfusion script to burn the SD card, and the update_all script to grab the cores, and you’re off the races (supply your own console ROMs).
Note that it’s not a general purpose emulator. If the core doesn’t exist for x, you ain’t playing x. This is more an issue with arcade titles; consoles are easy - if the core for the console (e.g., SNES) exists, you can pretty much expect that all games for that console will work. The beauty of it is there is NO (read: imperceptibly) lag (you can get no lag [beyond what was present on original hardware] if you go analog to a CRT and use OG peripherals with a SNAC adapter, but it’s not a noticeable difference IMO). It’s unbelievable once you try it. For me, the litmus test is the Tyson fight on NES Punch Out. It’s just… easier when you’re not fighting input delay that exists in almost every software emulator out there.
Check the YouTube channel video game esoterica to see what’s out there. I love it. Feels just like being on original hardware.
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)
Yeah, it was probably project64 I was using. I get th FPGA is fantastic and allows for, basically reprogrammable hardware (think re-flashing all your firmware at the rate of a few KHz) but isn’t this a solution seeking a problem? I never had any real issues emulating N64, and it didn’t cost anything.
I’m not really seeing where the benefit of this product is. I hope the sell the crap out of it because it sounds cool, but I would never invest in the idea.
Hope I’m wrong for their sake. If I can’t remember the name of an emulator I used 13 years ago, hopefully that means I’m wrong about this too.
I wonder what they’re selling it for. FPGAs are about 150-300 off the shelf. Looks like the pocket is selling at 500-800 by scalpers, and I can see the demand for that. Maybe if the 3d plays all PS1, N64 and PS2 games, all in Super sharp 4k?
Regardless, this will be interesting to watch for further developments.
These are for retro collection junkies. Most people who buy analogue products are only planning on using physical carts to play. This will likely not have openFPGA so don’t expect it to run anything but N64 games, it will probably get a custom firmware eventually that allows rom play but that functionality will not be out of the box.
Rom play would be good. That would make sense, but I think it would definitely be a mistake to not fully leverage the FPGA and make it do other things. If you have the ability to change your processor into a different processor on the fly, and don’t, you should be using custom chip design instead of FPGA. In the long haul, that should be cheaper.
No, if they’re using FPGA, and advertising it, the consumer should expect this box to be a chameleon. Anything else would be a disappointment, just looking at their earlier work.
Still, it’ll be interesting to see what they do with it but I already know I can’t afford it.
I get where you are coming from but once again this is a niche product for one use only. Just because they use an FPGA doesn’t mean it should be capable of running other cores. If a consumer is looking for that type of use then they should be investing in a Mister. Analogue builds retro consoles with cartridge use in mind, they use FPGA because it gives the most accurate experience. It’s a boutique product, so yes it’s expensive and doesn’t make sense to someone who just wants an all in one device like a mister.
Interesting. My understanding of field programmable gate arrays is that they were field programmable and therefore programmable in the field. Perhaps I’m mistaken. I’m just thinking that it would be foolish for them not to leverage this for higher profit. Their handheld has a MIDI sequencer… Something tells me that maybe they were leveraging it there too.
I recognize this sounds sarcastic but I don’t mean it to be. I’ve just never done any in-depth study into FPGAs, just a little bit of an intro to them when I was back in college an Eon ago. 😂
Add comment