@FR4M3 Watch or read the news, man. It's been called the Red Sea Crisis. They've attacked many commercial vessels (few of which are US owned and operated) and several military vessels, have sank several, have damaged a fair number of them, have seized at least one merchant shop and kidnapped the crew, have forced many millions of dollars to be spent to combat the crisis, etc.
As for why, you'd have to ask them. The vast majority of their targets have had literally nothing to do with their stated goal. They're literally attempting to attack anything that moves.
But it's all besides the point. When I spoke about giving the military and the young people that have enlisted to serve their nation the tools that they need to succeed, I'm talking peacetime & wartime. Not even necessarily the US, if you think that's distasteful given the attack on Israel by Hamas and the Gaza crisis that has now followed. It could be a country like New Zealand for instance, which has a modest military aimed primarily at patrolling and protecting their maritime interests in the region like fisheries protection (a military that essentially is 100% focused on self-defense rather than any sort of offensive mission).
I would hope that their citizens and those of their allies, including the US, want New Zealand's young men & women to have the tools that they need like safe & reliable maritime surveillance aircraft rather than something that might lose a wing the next time it goes up into the air and kill the entire crew.
Furthermore, the US and our allies have engaged in combat with regularity in recent times, like our guided missile destroyers and cruisers alongside the Royal Navy and other allies regularly engaging drones and anti-ship missiles fired by the Houthis at anything that floats.
But since that flew right over your head and hit the basement wall behind you, you don't wait until hostilities break out before forming a military, training young men & women to fight, developing technology to enable them to do their job the best that they can, equipping them with the tools that they'd need, etc.
It's what a standing army is all about. You can't be so naïve to not be able to grasp that concept. We're talking well over a decade for instance to bring a new aircraft carrier into service. Starting with NAVSHIPS forming up requirements and conducting research to having the ship in service with a fully trained crew and able to be used is an extremely long process, very expensive, and takes millions of man hours to accomplish.
You don't wait until war has broken out to then prepare. You prepare for it now and hope that it's such a deterrent that a potential foe ends up never starting it in the first place. Otherwise you're in trouble when something like just rolling out a new design of fighter jet can take a generation.
Edit: Read about it on Wikipedia. What a creepy guy.
I don't find his endeavor with drones distasteful. I'm all for giving the American military and those of our allies the tools to better protect our soldiers, sailors, and airmen while taking the war to the enemy to hopefully achieve a speedy conclusion to hostilities with the minimum loss of life possible. But something like this VR headset stunt just speaks volumes that this guy has to be insane.
@KainXavier Namco owns Ms. Pac-Man and Pac-Man Plus (Namco has let it out of the vaults a few times). As part of the Midway settlement, it seems logical that they also control Jr. Pac-Man and Baby Pac-Man even though they've never done anything with either.
What GCC had was royalties. Dating back to when the game was developed by GCC and Midway released it (with Namco's knowledge and unwritten approval, which backfired when the game became a massive hit and Namco sued), every time that Ms. Pac-Man was sold they were owed a small royalty.
Namco through the years gradually "forgot" about it until GCC reminded them of the agreement and the history behind Ms. Pac-Man (Namco at that point was under the impression it was an in-house production rather than a Midway/GCC game from the United States).
When this happened back circa 2010 is when we started to see Ms. Pac-Man not be released alongside their other golden age flagships, with an occasional exception like the paid DLC add-on to add the game to the original Pac-Man Museum roster.
Fast forward 8-10 years or so and GCC was looking to sell. Namco underbid and AtGames, thinking about how they already had a Namco Pac-Man license and were including these games in their offerings, offered more with the ideal that they could now include Ms. Pac-Man.
Since then, Ms. Pac-Man has largely been in limbo. A few old digital releases have remained available like the backwards compatible XBLA game, but few if any new appearances have happened for the game. Apparently it created a rift between these two companies with Namco feeling like AtGames stabbed them in the back and not wanting to pay AtGames the GCC royalty fee. The result has been Ms. Pac-Man sitting on the sidelines.
Edit: These links can tell the complicated story better than my retelling of it from memory. While I got the gist of it right, my telling of it isn't fully accurate.
@Atariboy Just for the sake of full transparency, I'm of course only referring to 2600 cartridges. Starpath Supercharger fans are of course out of luck with their cassette games.
It would certainly be cool to connect one to the 2600/7800+ and play great games like The Official Frogger, but it's not going to be happening.
I suppose that's one spot that a jailbroken Hyperkin Retron '77 still offers a perk compared to the official Atari SA offerings, since you can just stick those roms or any other 2600 rom onto a micro SD card and be off to the races.
@Sketcz Pitfall 2 works. They solved that hurdle months ago.
They recently also got the Melody enhanced homebrews from Champ Games and such working as well, such as the excellent port of Galaga for the 2600.
I believe there's one or two homebrews that are still problematic for the dumper routine (these problem games were never an emulation issue, with Stella fully able to handle the job). But basically 100% of the commercial library and 99.9% of the homebrew 2600 library is now playable.
Nerds in basements apparently can't comprehend that people and the nations that they form always have refused to live peacefully.
It sadly means that even those with good intentions to pursue peace have to pursue the means to defend themselves. That means aircraft, bombs, torpedoes, ships, missiles, etc.
I've even seem condemnations about drones from these supposed haters of war, saying that people should be putting their lives at risk rather than fighting remotely. I guess it's better to have two 18 year old kids die if their Apache gets shot down than it is to lose an unmanned drone.
I could get behind a Gaelco arcade compilation (World Rally and World Rally 2 were both great), but I'll pass on this particular release.
I just bought the Top Racer Collection off the Xbox store at a discounted price (Another one from QUByte Interactive and Piko Interactive). It will be interesting to see how it performs. Top Gear 1 has long been a favorite game. And save states will be much appreciated in Top Gear 2 and 3000 (I hate writing down and entering in passwords; Top Gear 1's "HORIZONS" password to unlock every country and easily return to where you left off gives that one a pass).
They really need to make sure to support USB mouse/track-ball accessories this time around on consoles. It was a shame that was a PC exclusive feature on Atari 50 when the Switch 1, PS4/5, and XB1/Series systems all support the hardware as an option.
It looks okay, but only okay. A bit reminiscent of 1942: Joint Strike from 15+ years ago. Not very ambitious and cheaply done, but perhaps entertaining enough for a few playthroughs if the price is right (I think that one was $5, to give an idea of what I'd say this new Aero Fighters game is worth after watching gameplay of it).
It definitely isn't going to be a memorable release though. And unlike when the XBLA game that I mentioned came out, there's no shortage of vertical and horizontal shooters today. With regular Arcade Archives releases, Gradius Origins and numerous other collections, and new games here and there, this one is way too generic to stand a chance of standing out.
And judging by the Japanese prices, they're asking a premium price for what's not a premium game. Cheap graphics and it appears to be far too easy of a game. So those that do make the jump can expect to not have much replayability for their purchase, unlike what a good shooter will offer.
I'm not sure what role Hamster has here, but given that they're the rights holders of the IP and potentially the developer (Success appears to just be the publisher), they have a long ways to go before they're able to craft something as memorable as many of the games that they emulate so well via their Arcade Archives program.
He's very much mistaken. XBLA Streets of Rage 2 still has online multiplayer on the Xbox 360. And Sega Genesis Classics on PS4 and XB1 also has online multiplayer that it still active (I don't own the Switch version, but assume it too has the feature).
Getting delisted doesn't have to mean that the online capabilities are shut down.
Folks, no need to ask about Everdrive support when you see that it's using software emulation. Multicarts like Everdrives require multi-loading, which necessitates a live cartridge bus.
So any device that dumps a cartridge and runs the resulting rom image that's created, which all emulation based systems do out of necessity, will not work with your Everdrive. At best you'll get the Everdrive menu and nothing else.
Stick to selling us on Analogue products, please. Those deliver on their promises and then some, and deserve this sort of coverage. So far Polymega hasn't done a thing to convince the community they'll live up to even half their promises, have been caught in numerous lies, have backtracked on their stated intentions several times, have engaged in a foolish smear campaign against Analogue, and have downright attempted to scam us.
@Deanster101 While Analogue is great and I love what they've been doing (And can't wait to order a Mega SG later this year to join my Super NT), fpga isn't automatically better than emulation.
While Polymega is a scam, you won't find someone like Kevtris ever bad mouthing quality software emulation such as Stella, Higan, etc. Extremely accurate and very good.
A fpga simulation can be as lousy as the worst NOAC clone. It's all up to the talent involved, their level of understanding of the hardware they're reproducing, their eye for details, etc. Just because it's fpga doesn't automatically elevate it above software emulation. It's not some magical elixir and at the end of the day, a skilled programmer still has to sit down and code their recreation of the original hardware no matter if it's fpga or emulation.
They both have their advantages and disadvantages. For instance of an advantage of emulation, save states aren't directly viable in Analogue's products. Of course with expensive multicarts, you can work around that to a degree, but for technical reasons I've forgotten (Which he's spoken about at AtariAge), Kevtris can't directly support them.
Yet Analogue's products offer such advantages as zero input lag thanks to things like the lack of an operating system slowing everything down, can interact directly with original cartridges, etc.
I suggest you use the find feature on your browser and reread my posts. All I did was tell you that a fpga simulation of an old console isn't automatically better than software emulation, after reading your very inaccurate impression of fpga hardware simulations versus software emulation that I've quoted below.
"Essentially, FPGA uses hardware emulation, which is nearly cycle-accurate, but much more difficult to pull off "
In actuality, it all comes down to the quality of the work going into the project, which isn't debatable. Fpga versus software emulation has nothing to do with one or the other being cycle accurate. It all comes down to the talent of the coder and their understanding of the system that they're reproducing.
And lastly, here's some of those choice words praising Polymega that you've accused me of posting here...
"For those looking forward to this, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that's a great deal that I'll sell to you cheap. I hope to be hearing from you."
"It's emulation based, so if by a miracle they eventually release something a few years from now, it won't work with multicarts."
"Being fpga doesn't make it cycle accurate. It's the quality of the hardware simulation or the software emulator that does."
Also note that I just spent all morning playing Sim City on my Super NT. I hope you get your preorder money refunded from Polymega eventually, Mike, since I'd be sour too if I had fallen for the scam. Invest it in Analogue products in the future if you ever get it back.
@mikegamer Being fpga doesn't make it cycle accurate. It's the quality of the hardware simulation or the software emulator that does.
It takes a lot of time and talent to arrive at what's believed to be a fully accurate implementation of the original hardware (Such as Higan for a SNES emulator or the Super NT for a SNES fpga recreation). One is as difficult as the other, requiring a lot of talent, trial and error to develop an understanding of how the original hardware works, detective work, and testing.
The value of a fpga configured into a replica of something like the Super Nintendo are that that the hardware requirements are comparatively cheap since it doesn't require the horsepower that powering a software emulator does (Looking at system requirements for Higan, there's no way you could release a $200 emulation based SNES console capable of running it), a live cartridge bus is possible which allows full interaction with original cartridges rather than the flawed dump system that emulation based devices utilize, and it offers zero input lag thanks to thanks to things like no operating system, frame buffer, or USB overhead.
@Erchitu It's emulation based, so if by a miracle they eventually release something a few years from now, it won't work with multicarts.
It would presumably be able to read rom images and disc images off internal memory, serving as its own multicart just as your PC's HDD does when doing something like playing a SNES game via Higan and so on.
@Synthatron_Prime Because it's entirely incorrect. Hardware like a NES-on-a-chip isn't emulation in any way, shape, or form. It is a hardware based solution with the hardware natively executing old game code.
@roadrunner343 Which isn't emulation. Emulation is a software program that virtually replicates functionality of an older system within a software program that's operating on a newer platform that otherwise wouldn't be able to run game code from the older platform. This isn't what's going on here, so I suggest you do more research since your confidence very much is misplaced.
A Genesis-on-a-chip, much like the infamous NOAC, is a hardware replica in miniaturized form on a single integrated circuit. There is no software middleman operating as a translator of sorts. It is hardware only and natively will run Sega Genesis software. This is why it's able to interact with an Everdrive, where as emulation based clone systems, which don't have a live cartridge bus and instead dump the contents of a cartridge and run the resulting file, won't.
How emulation based systems operate with cartridges breaks how a flash multicart and other devices with multiple step loading like Game Genies operate. This is why you won't find a single emulation based clone system out there that will interact with something like an Everdrive, SN2SNES, Cuttle Cart, Harmony cartridge, Powerpak, and so on (And is why one can confidently state that this isn't emulation if a Genesis Everdrive is working).
These ASIC solutions are doing exactly what a FPGA based system does to directly execute game code from an older platform, just in a non-reprogrammable way where as a FPGA based system can have its integrated circuit be reconfigured on the fly by the customer after manufacturing just by loading in a new profile or updating firmware.
@WesCopeland This isn't emulation, which is why multicarts like Everdrives work here but don't on something like the Retron 5 that has to dump the cartridge and then load the resulting rom image. Only the Retro-Bit Generations and Retro-Bit Super Retrocade rely upon emulation.
Comments 30
Re: Palmer Luckey's Nintendo 64 Clone Will Cost $199 For Early Adopters
@FR4M3 Guess what I'm now doing?
Re: Palmer Luckey's Nintendo 64 Clone Will Cost $199 For Early Adopters
@FR4M3 Watch or read the news, man. It's been called the Red Sea Crisis. They've attacked many commercial vessels (few of which are US owned and operated) and several military vessels, have sank several, have damaged a fair number of them, have seized at least one merchant shop and kidnapped the crew, have forced many millions of dollars to be spent to combat the crisis, etc.
As for why, you'd have to ask them. The vast majority of their targets have had literally nothing to do with their stated goal. They're literally attempting to attack anything that moves.
But it's all besides the point. When I spoke about giving the military and the young people that have enlisted to serve their nation the tools that they need to succeed, I'm talking peacetime & wartime. Not even necessarily the US, if you think that's distasteful given the attack on Israel by Hamas and the Gaza crisis that has now followed. It could be a country like New Zealand for instance, which has a modest military aimed primarily at patrolling and protecting their maritime interests in the region like fisheries protection (a military that essentially is 100% focused on self-defense rather than any sort of offensive mission).
I would hope that their citizens and those of their allies, including the US, want New Zealand's young men & women to have the tools that they need like safe & reliable maritime surveillance aircraft rather than something that might lose a wing the next time it goes up into the air and kill the entire crew.
Re: Palmer Luckey's Nintendo 64 Clone Will Cost $199 For Early Adopters
@FR4M3 I was obviously talking in generalities.
Furthermore, the US and our allies have engaged in combat with regularity in recent times, like our guided missile destroyers and cruisers alongside the Royal Navy and other allies regularly engaging drones and anti-ship missiles fired by the Houthis at anything that floats.
But since that flew right over your head and hit the basement wall behind you, you don't wait until hostilities break out before forming a military, training young men & women to fight, developing technology to enable them to do their job the best that they can, equipping them with the tools that they'd need, etc.
It's what a standing army is all about. You can't be so naïve to not be able to grasp that concept. We're talking well over a decade for instance to bring a new aircraft carrier into service. Starting with NAVSHIPS forming up requirements and conducting research to having the ship in service with a fully trained crew and able to be used is an extremely long process, very expensive, and takes millions of man hours to accomplish.
You don't wait until war has broken out to then prepare. You prepare for it now and hope that it's such a deterrent that a potential foe ends up never starting it in the first place. Otherwise you're in trouble when something like just rolling out a new design of fighter jet can take a generation.
Re: Palmer Luckey's Nintendo 64 Clone Will Cost $199 For Early Adopters
@MikeP What VR machine kills the user?
Edit: Read about it on Wikipedia. What a creepy guy.
I don't find his endeavor with drones distasteful. I'm all for giving the American military and those of our allies the tools to better protect our soldiers, sailors, and airmen while taking the war to the enemy to hopefully achieve a speedy conclusion to hostilities with the minimum loss of life possible. But something like this VR headset stunt just speaks volumes that this guy has to be insane.
Re: Atari Is Re-Releasing Its 2600+ To Celebrate Pac-Man's 45th Birthday
@KainXavier Namco owns Ms. Pac-Man and Pac-Man Plus (Namco has let it out of the vaults a few times). As part of the Midway settlement, it seems logical that they also control Jr. Pac-Man and Baby Pac-Man even though they've never done anything with either.
What GCC had was royalties. Dating back to when the game was developed by GCC and Midway released it (with Namco's knowledge and unwritten approval, which backfired when the game became a massive hit and Namco sued), every time that Ms. Pac-Man was sold they were owed a small royalty.
Namco through the years gradually "forgot" about it until GCC reminded them of the agreement and the history behind Ms. Pac-Man (Namco at that point was under the impression it was an in-house production rather than a Midway/GCC game from the United States).
When this happened back circa 2010 is when we started to see Ms. Pac-Man not be released alongside their other golden age flagships, with an occasional exception like the paid DLC add-on to add the game to the original Pac-Man Museum roster.
Fast forward 8-10 years or so and GCC was looking to sell. Namco underbid and AtGames, thinking about how they already had a Namco Pac-Man license and were including these games in their offerings, offered more with the ideal that they could now include Ms. Pac-Man.
Since then, Ms. Pac-Man has largely been in limbo. A few old digital releases have remained available like the backwards compatible XBLA game, but few if any new appearances have happened for the game. Apparently it created a rift between these two companies with Namco feeling like AtGames stabbed them in the back and not wanting to pay AtGames the GCC royalty fee. The result has been Ms. Pac-Man sitting on the sidelines.
Edit: These links can tell the complicated story better than my retelling of it from memory. While I got the gist of it right, my telling of it isn't fully accurate.
https://pacman.fandom.com/wiki/History_of_Ms.Pac-Man_legal_issues#General_Computer_Corporation_vs._Midway_lawsuit(1982)
https://www.fastcompany.com/3067296/the-mit-dropouts-who-created-ms-pac-man-a-35th-anniversary-oral-history
Re: Atari Is Re-Releasing Its 2600+ To Celebrate Pac-Man's 45th Birthday
@Atariboy Just for the sake of full transparency, I'm of course only referring to 2600 cartridges. Starpath Supercharger fans are of course out of luck with their cassette games.
It would certainly be cool to connect one to the 2600/7800+ and play great games like The Official Frogger, but it's not going to be happening.
I suppose that's one spot that a jailbroken Hyperkin Retron '77 still offers a perk compared to the official Atari SA offerings, since you can just stick those roms or any other 2600 rom onto a micro SD card and be off to the races.
Re: Atari Is Re-Releasing Its 2600+ To Celebrate Pac-Man's 45th Birthday
@Sketcz Pitfall 2 works. They solved that hurdle months ago.
They recently also got the Melody enhanced homebrews from Champ Games and such working as well, such as the excellent port of Galaga for the 2600.
I believe there's one or two homebrews that are still problematic for the dumper routine (these problem games were never an emulation issue, with Stella fully able to handle the job). But basically 100% of the commercial library and 99.9% of the homebrew 2600 library is now playable.
Re: WayForward Distances Itself From ModRetro's Re-Release Of Sabrina: Zapped! On Game Boy Color
Nerds in basements apparently can't comprehend that people and the nations that they form always have refused to live peacefully.
It sadly means that even those with good intentions to pursue peace have to pursue the means to defend themselves. That means aircraft, bombs, torpedoes, ships, missiles, etc.
I've even seem condemnations about drones from these supposed haters of war, saying that people should be putting their lives at risk rather than fighting remotely. I guess it's better to have two 18 year old kids die if their Apache gets shot down than it is to lose an unmanned drone.
What a world.
Re: BBC Recently Covered The Rise Of Retro Gaming - See If You Can Spot The Problem
Typical level of journalism quality from the BBC.
Re: This New 'Beat Em Up Collection' Brings Together 7 "QUByte Classics" In A Single Package
I could get behind a Gaelco arcade compilation (World Rally and World Rally 2 were both great), but I'll pass on this particular release.
I just bought the Top Racer Collection off the Xbox store at a discounted price (Another one from QUByte Interactive and Piko Interactive). It will be interesting to see how it performs. Top Gear 1 has long been a favorite game. And save states will be much appreciated in Top Gear 2 and 3000 (I hate writing down and entering in passwords; Top Gear 1's "HORIZONS" password to unlock every country and easily return to where you left off gives that one a pass).
Re: ChatGPT Translated An Article About Space Harrier, Then Suggested "Tailoring" It For Retro Gamer
Space Harrier was never on the Sega CD.
Re: This Week's Arcade Archives Release Is Another Deep Cut From Konami's Past
I bought this on Game Room years ago. Despite not being well known (I believe it only got a 2600 port back in the day), it's quite a good game.
Will be nice to replace yet another Game Room title on the Xbox 360.
Re: Digital Eclipse's Next Collection Focuses On The "Iconic" Golden Tee Arcade Series
They really need to make sure to support USB mouse/track-ball accessories this time around on consoles. It was a shame that was a PC exclusive feature on Atari 50 when the Switch 1, PS4/5, and XB1/Series systems all support the hardware as an option.
Re: Sonic Wings Reunion Is Coming To Switch, PS5, PS4, Arcades, And Steam Later This Month
I hope that the border art can be disabled.
It looks okay, but only okay. A bit reminiscent of 1942: Joint Strike from 15+ years ago. Not very ambitious and cheaply done, but perhaps entertaining enough for a few playthroughs if the price is right (I think that one was $5, to give an idea of what I'd say this new Aero Fighters game is worth after watching gameplay of it).
It definitely isn't going to be a memorable release though. And unlike when the XBLA game that I mentioned came out, there's no shortage of vertical and horizontal shooters today. With regular Arcade Archives releases, Gradius Origins and numerous other collections, and new games here and there, this one is way too generic to stand a chance of standing out.
And judging by the Japanese prices, they're asking a premium price for what's not a premium game. Cheap graphics and it appears to be far too easy of a game. So those that do make the jump can expect to not have much replayability for their purchase, unlike what a good shooter will offer.
I'm not sure what role Hamster has here, but given that they're the rights holders of the IP and potentially the developer (Success appears to just be the publisher), they have a long ways to go before they're able to craft something as memorable as many of the games that they emulate so well via their Arcade Archives program.
Re: Nintendo Switch Online Update Brings Netplay Back To One Of Sega's Best Brawlers
He's very much mistaken. XBLA Streets of Rage 2 still has online multiplayer on the Xbox 360. And Sega Genesis Classics on PS4 and XB1 also has online multiplayer that it still active (I don't own the Switch version, but assume it too has the feature).
Getting delisted doesn't have to mean that the online capabilities are shut down.
Re: Exclusive: Polymega's Next Module Brings Nintendo 64 Support
Folks, no need to ask about Everdrive support when you see that it's using software emulation. Multicarts like Everdrives require multi-loading, which necessitates a live cartridge bus.
So any device that dumps a cartridge and runs the resulting rom image that's created, which all emulation based systems do out of necessity, will not work with your Everdrive. At best you'll get the Everdrive menu and nothing else.
Re: Polymega's "Next Gen" Light Gun Controller Will Let You Play Duck Hunt On Your HDTV
Will believe it when I see it.
Re: Hands On: Polymega Is Shaping Up To Be The Ultimate All-In-One Retro Emulation Box
Stick to selling us on Analogue products, please. Those deliver on their promises and then some, and deserve this sort of coverage. So far Polymega hasn't done a thing to convince the community they'll live up to even half their promises, have been caught in numerous lies, have backtracked on their stated intentions several times, have engaged in a foolish smear campaign against Analogue, and have downright attempted to scam us.
Re: More Tantalising Polymega Details Emerge From GDC 2019
@Deanster101 While Analogue is great and I love what they've been doing (And can't wait to order a Mega SG later this year to join my Super NT), fpga isn't automatically better than emulation.
While Polymega is a scam, you won't find someone like Kevtris ever bad mouthing quality software emulation such as Stella, Higan, etc. Extremely accurate and very good.
A fpga simulation can be as lousy as the worst NOAC clone. It's all up to the talent involved, their level of understanding of the hardware they're reproducing, their eye for details, etc. Just because it's fpga doesn't automatically elevate it above software emulation. It's not some magical elixir and at the end of the day, a skilled programmer still has to sit down and code their recreation of the original hardware no matter if it's fpga or emulation.
They both have their advantages and disadvantages. For instance of an advantage of emulation, save states aren't directly viable in Analogue's products. Of course with expensive multicarts, you can work around that to a degree, but for technical reasons I've forgotten (Which he's spoken about at AtariAge), Kevtris can't directly support them.
Yet Analogue's products offer such advantages as zero input lag thanks to things like the lack of an operating system slowing everything down, can interact directly with original cartridges, etc.
Re: More Tantalising Polymega Details Emerge From GDC 2019
@mikegamer I'm defending them? lol
I suggest you use the find feature on your browser and reread my posts. All I did was tell you that a fpga simulation of an old console isn't automatically better than software emulation, after reading your very inaccurate impression of fpga hardware simulations versus software emulation that I've quoted below.
"Essentially, FPGA uses hardware emulation, which is nearly cycle-accurate, but much more difficult to pull off "
In actuality, it all comes down to the quality of the work going into the project, which isn't debatable. Fpga versus software emulation has nothing to do with one or the other being cycle accurate. It all comes down to the talent of the coder and their understanding of the system that they're reproducing.
And lastly, here's some of those choice words praising Polymega that you've accused me of posting here...
"For those looking forward to this, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that's a great deal that I'll sell to you cheap. I hope to be hearing from you."
"It's emulation based, so if by a miracle they eventually release something a few years from now, it won't work with multicarts."
"Being fpga doesn't make it cycle accurate. It's the quality of the hardware simulation or the software emulator that does."
Also note that I just spent all morning playing Sim City on my Super NT. I hope you get your preorder money refunded from Polymega eventually, Mike, since I'd be sour too if I had fallen for the scam. Invest it in Analogue products in the future if you ever get it back.
Re: More Tantalising Polymega Details Emerge From GDC 2019
@mikegamer Being fpga doesn't make it cycle accurate. It's the quality of the hardware simulation or the software emulator that does.
It takes a lot of time and talent to arrive at what's believed to be a fully accurate implementation of the original hardware (Such as Higan for a SNES emulator or the Super NT for a SNES fpga recreation). One is as difficult as the other, requiring a lot of talent, trial and error to develop an understanding of how the original hardware works, detective work, and testing.
The value of a fpga configured into a replica of something like the Super Nintendo are that that the hardware requirements are comparatively cheap since it doesn't require the horsepower that powering a software emulator does (Looking at system requirements for Higan, there's no way you could release a $200 emulation based SNES console capable of running it), a live cartridge bus is possible which allows full interaction with original cartridges rather than the flawed dump system that emulation based devices utilize, and it offers zero input lag thanks to thanks to things like no operating system, frame buffer, or USB overhead.
Re: More Tantalising Polymega Details Emerge From GDC 2019
@Erchitu It's emulation based, so if by a miracle they eventually release something a few years from now, it won't work with multicarts.
It would presumably be able to read rom images and disc images off internal memory, serving as its own multicart just as your PC's HDD does when doing something like playing a SNES game via Higan and so on.
Re: More Tantalising Polymega Details Emerge From GDC 2019
For those looking forward to this, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that's a great deal that I'll sell to you cheap. I hope to be hearing from you.
Re: Hardware Review: 16Bit Pocket MD - An Unexpectedly Decent Portable Mega Drive
@roadrunner343 You're a class act. Thanks for the nice response.
Re: Hardware Review: 16Bit Pocket MD - An Unexpectedly Decent Portable Mega Drive
@Synthatron_Prime Because it's entirely incorrect. Hardware like a NES-on-a-chip isn't emulation in any way, shape, or form. It is a hardware based solution with the hardware natively executing old game code.
Re: Hardware Review: 16Bit Pocket MD - An Unexpectedly Decent Portable Mega Drive
@roadrunner343 Which isn't emulation. Emulation is a software program that virtually replicates functionality of an older system within a software program that's operating on a newer platform that otherwise wouldn't be able to run game code from the older platform. This isn't what's going on here, so I suggest you do more research since your confidence very much is misplaced.
A Genesis-on-a-chip, much like the infamous NOAC, is a hardware replica in miniaturized form on a single integrated circuit. There is no software middleman operating as a translator of sorts. It is hardware only and natively will run Sega Genesis software. This is why it's able to interact with an Everdrive, where as emulation based clone systems, which don't have a live cartridge bus and instead dump the contents of a cartridge and run the resulting file, won't.
How emulation based systems operate with cartridges breaks how a flash multicart and other devices with multiple step loading like Game Genies operate. This is why you won't find a single emulation based clone system out there that will interact with something like an Everdrive, SN2SNES, Cuttle Cart, Harmony cartridge, Powerpak, and so on (And is why one can confidently state that this isn't emulation if a Genesis Everdrive is working).
These ASIC solutions are doing exactly what a FPGA based system does to directly execute game code from an older platform, just in a non-reprogrammable way where as a FPGA based system can have its integrated circuit be reconfigured on the fly by the customer after manufacturing just by loading in a new profile or updating firmware.
Re: Hardware Review: 16Bit Pocket MD - An Unexpectedly Decent Portable Mega Drive
If an Everdrive cartridge works, this isn't emulation. Rather, it's a hardware based clone using Genesis-on-a-chip technology.
Re: Polymega's Grand Vision For The Ultimate Retro System Includes A Virtual Console Successor
Why is arcade Sega Rally shown off in the trailer when they're showing off how it allegedly plays Saturn games?
Re: Hardware Review: Retro-Bit Super Retro Trio Plus
@WesCopeland This isn't emulation, which is why multicarts like Everdrives work here but don't on something like the Retron 5 that has to dump the cartridge and then load the resulting rom image. Only the Retro-Bit Generations and Retro-Bit Super Retrocade rely upon emulation.
Re: RetroBlox Becomes Polymega, Joypad And User Interface Get Shown Off
Vaporware