this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2023
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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.
The hardware they run is different, but the approach is the same in that FPGA and low level emulators both aim to accurately emulate the console hardware itself. You could theoretically reach 100% accuracy with either method. My problem with Analogue’s “no emulation” claims, is that they mislead people into believing their products are perfect recreations and that software emulation is inherently inaccurate. Due to being reverse engineered reproductions, Analogue’s core still encounter similar bugs that are seen in software emulators and need to be patched.