Analogue Super NT Review - FPGA SNES Clone Console - System, Menus, Compatibility, MSU and more!
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 16 июл 2024
- The Super NT is the latest "reference quality" retro console from Analogue. This device uses an FPGA chip to accurately simulate the SNES / Super Famicom and output high quality images with little lag to high definition televisions. See more clone consoles: lon.tv/nesclones and subscribe! lon.tv/s
VIDEO INDEX:
0:00 - Intro
00:49 - Hardware overview
00:52 - Price
01:47 - What's the big deal about FPGAs?
03:43 - Build quality
04:18 - Controller options & connectivity
05:44 - Boot up and gameplay
07:46 - Running cartridges
08:00 - Menu settings: Video modes, width, scanlines, scalers
11:16 - Advanced video settings
12:33 - Audio setings
12:48 - Marker 20
12:57 - System settings
14:01 - Input lag
16:03 - Compatibiltiy with SuperFX
16:18 - Audio comparison real SNES vs. Super NT
16:57 - Video comparison to cheaper clone consoles
17:24 - Visual comparison to SNES Classic
17:46 - No saves states on the Super NT
18:34 - Flash cartridges : SD2SNES
19:54 - MSU support for digital audio and homebrew ports
21:29 - Final thoughts
The Super NT definitely delivers. Super accurate with crisp sound and equally stunning video output at 1080p. I am quite pleased with it and hope that we see some additional firmware to allow other advanced consoles to run on the device as well.
This was something we saw with the Analogue NT Mini that came out about a year and a half ago that cloned the NES but later was able to run FPGA simulator cores of other 1980s consoles.
Subscribe to my email list to get a weekly digest of upcoming videos! - lon.tv/email
See my second channel for supplementary content : lon.tv/extras
Visit the Lon.TV store to purchase some of my previously reviewed items! lon.tv/store
Read more about my transparency and disclaimers: lon.tv/disclosures
Want to chat with other fans of the channel? Visit our forums! lon.tv/forums
Want to help the channel? Start a Member subscription or give a one time tip!
lon.tv/support
or contribute via Venmo!
lon@lon.tv
Follow me on Facebook!
/ lonreviewstech
Follow me on Twitter!
/ lonseidman
Catch my longer interviews in audio form on my podcast!
lon.tv/itunes
lon.tv/stitcher
or the feed at lon.tv/podcast/feed.xml
Follow me on Google+
lonseidman.com
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. 
Наука
15:30 you are spot on! Playing SMW on the snes classic on a generic hd tv I constantly mistimed jumps and initially thought it was that I had gotten worse reaction time as I had gotten older, but after playing it at a friends house who has the original hardware and a crt I could immediately run trough the levels almost flawlessly just like I did as a kid. It's hard to perceive the input lag, but you feel it in a game like SMW or MMX, in other titles such as ALttp or FF6 it obviously doesn't matter at all
I really like the style of your video reviews! They feel old fashioned and super instructive. Thank you so much for being so thorough :)
This is by far my favorite review you have done. I really enjoy the part about the flash cart and comparing the consoles to other snes clones.
Love your work Lon, this was the definitive review on the Super NT I was waiting for!
Always love your input lag tests. Thanks for the review.
Retro Roundtable brought me here. Your review was awesome! And I've never heard of you so I subbed :)
Got the Analogue Super Nt today (black color, it was the only color they were still accepting pre-orders for as the other three colors are all sold out when I placed my order last month), cannot wait to try it out! Sure came in fast from Analogue shipping it out last Friday coming in to Canada.
My lord, I think 5 different channels I'm subscribed to had videos on this machine just today too.
The embargo lifted today :)
Figured that's what it was. Good review!
Its always great to see all the perspectives coming from knowledgeable people with different Tech/Gaming specialties. Consider yourself lucky to have perspectives from guys like Lon, Digital Foundry and My Life In Gaming at your fingertips.
TacticalPower88 Dad?
decadentia84 Yes my son.
*I love this FPGA!* I don't even use my rgb modded snes with a CRT anymore. I'm extremely sensitive to lag (hence why I normally use a CRT) but even with the Bluetooth controller this thing is perfect for me. Only complaint I have is the sensitivity on the 8bitdo D-pad. Luckily though, I opened it up and swapped the rubber and d-pad with an official controller's and that worked great. You can also add electrical tape to the contacts to make it less sensitive, but I found it unnecessary, the swap was good enough.
Metal Jesus Rocks got two for free and you did a better review having to pay the steep price. Great vid. Still too much for my blood but as a retro game lover, I like seeing progress still being made.
That system and that room are awesome.
Awesome review! I'd like to see your Imput Lag Test done to the RetroUSB AVS. I know you have reviewed that but you're missing the Imput Lag Test.
Unfortunately I don't have it any longer :(.
Great review. Ordered.
Thanks for the excellent review! I thought that it was interesting that you referred to seeing pixels as something that bothered you but I guess that's a subjective preference. The guys over at MLiG strive for razor sharp pixels in their videos about getting the best quality of of retro gaming systems. Lower quality video signals like composite and RF produce a blurry and noisy picture that doesn't allow the player to see individual pixels clearly. Properly upscaled RGB signals from original hardware and direct digital from the Super Nt do make the pixels more visible.
It's funny - I grew up playing these games on lousy televisions that really softened up the images. So my memory was playing these games on those lousy televisions so it is, to some degree, jarring to see these super sharp perfect pixels now :).
Finally snagged one of these babies! Looking forward to *finally* playing Super Metroid, which i put off until i could play it looking the best it can look.
Keep up the great work
Great review, always through.
Great video. I almost pre-ordered one, and was more than willing to spend the $189 for a unit, but the $40 ground shipping killed the deal for me.
And it comes from Hong Kong China.
I want this so badly
You really love playing with those cart flaps.
charvelgtrs It likes when he does it. 😍😍😍
Best review ever
Hi. It would be nice if you made a video commenting on the settings you recommend to people who have the console, since some of us do not really know what would be the best way to play with this console on 4K TVs, what resolution to put, those things. A greeting from Spain!.
Great review Lon! Really looking forward getting this in the future. However, one thing I don't understand is why people are so pumped about ultra crisp pixel-graphics for these retro consoles. A lot of times artists and game developers at the time would use either raster patterns or vertical stripe patterns to create more colors on screen (or trick you to believe that raster shadows was transparent). With a razor sharp pixel scale you really miss out on the graphical vision of these games. Sure, I get it, purists still use CRTs, but to be honest it would be awesome if they implemented a really good looking CRT-filter. bilinear filtering, scanlines, pixel light bloom, and even/odd pixel diffusion. That would definitely simulate the look of a CRT. :) (and it is possible since you can program your own shader core to the FPGA). Until now I have done this in retroArch, but in reality I would really love to have an FPGA console like this due authencity, increased compatibility and lag reduction. But yeah, great review, the console definitely looks promising!
I wonder if some of these highly pixelated retro inspired games are to blame for that desire for sharpness. I found that 16 bit games look better across a room vs. being closer to the television.
Excellent review! :D
Really great review as usual. I know you have a lot of retro game reviews...curious is there anything that will play sega on HDMI currently? Something in line with these Nintendo consoles?
There's some lousy clone consoles from ATGames but nothing as good as this just yet. The NT Mini can play Sega Master System through the FPGA though.
would you consider doing a review of the Super Retro Trio HD Plus console?
Thanks Lon for this awesome video. On your chart at 15:05, I understand that the 8bitdo receiver and controller add about 1.5 frame of lag?
In my testing it looks to be adding a bit, yes. That's to be expected given it has bluetooth as the intermediary.
FYI, they plan on releasing a proprietary analog adapter in the future that will be compatible with things like light guns.
If only they were ever available. =[ The only one you can order now is pure black. Who wants that instead of the original colors??
The most underrated tech channel on RUclips. Fuck the masses.
Analogue released DAC recently, it looks ok, but I can't tell for sure if the analog video output will be of adequate quality for us retrogaming communtity. Is the hdmi to RGB scart - Digital to analog - conversion decent enought to compare with a native real hardware of snes / sega mega drive consoles? I was hesitated to pick up a mega sg or a super nt analogue consoles because they lack a RGB video output for my CRT TVs. Maybe this is the right time?
Still, I have my doubts about how the RGB video quality will look like. I use good quality consumer CRT tvs (I have five of them). I wonder why the mega sg and the super nt analogue consoles are much cheaper than nt mini console (500$). First the RGB video output was cut off to lower the production costs. Then, an additional DAC circuit board is advertised to fulfill retrogaming community expactations. I still have my doubts, I don’t see many youtube videos with the DAC connected with analogue consoles to a CRT tv setup.
I have a feeling that we are in the middle of a massive CRT tv production. China already manufacture their own CRT TVs, but they lack the specs of the correct resolution, refresh rate etc to meet our retrogaming community requirements. I know in USA is very difficult to pick up a CRT TV, but here in Europe there are plenty of them in used condition.
If im playing Pal games do I set to 1080p50hz, or 1080p60hz?
So you are only getting 1 frame extra lag from your CRT to HDTV. That number can even be lower if you choose an HDTV with known low input lag.
I can't wait for this to be back in stock!
Pridetoons aka Afro Lion The pre order is up again
Does the NT upscale sega or NES if you put a retro adaptor in?
Mine has 2 problems: 1. I have to put the games in a lot of times before the cartridge works. 2. The screen flashes on and off just once, but still, it's annoying
Se ve mas que interesante esta consola.
Yes, the shipping cost was a bit obnoxious. :(
Great review! I'm holding out for a cartridge-less version with an SD Slot so I can just load it up with tons of roms from various consoles. Then I can finally retire my OUYA for classic console gaming.
A Black (or Sega inspired version) would be a good option too if Kevtris has a working core.
A cartridge less option is not the point of this, BUT you can get a Flashcard and have your Roms that way
Can you put Atari, Genesis, Coleco roms on a SNES flash cart? I think it only play SNES and that's it. Until an unofficial firmware gets released
Done, use the built in card slot
Perfecto!
Why are they out of stock?
the sd2snes is now compatible with superfx with its firmware update, sadly still no sa1 but might be brought in, in the future
I never realized the sa1 had its own 65c816 processor ! They are making progress so hopefully soon
Want one. Hard to find right now & resale is too high.
You should really test a super Nintendo on composite on your Samsung 4K to see how much latency is added in your original console because of your TV. That would really provide a better methodology.
metal jesus rocks makes also great video games hardware reviews
Whooaah, you telling me that the snes classic mini has an input latency of 80 miliseconds while the snes nt has only a latency of 44 miliseconds,that’s mind blowing because i did not notice any latency on the snes classic mini.
Yes absolutely. That's been the craziest thing since I started measuring this stuff - perception is often not consistent with the reality! The first time I plugged into one of these FPGA consoles it felt different and better and I couldn't put my finger on it. Once I started measuring it was crazy how bad some of this modern retro stuff is.
It would be nice to include the display lag of your TV. A 4k TV in particular has horrible display lag which is probably where that 44ms is coming from
That isn't true at all. Some of the best TVs out there for low lag are actually 4K. The TCL 605/607 series only has 14 -15ms of lag regardless if you have a 1080p or 4K source.
rtings.com Check that site out.
What shipping company do they use
Esau is The Devil
RapeEx
why the super nt is 250 $ and the mini nt 450 ? and why there isn't a pack "mini nt + super nt" for 500 $ ? i don't want to choose between nintendo and super nintendo.
can it run rom hacks?
No save states... but games like Mario world still save on a b or c?right?
Yes it'll save on cart as it does on the real hardware/
Wow so in the end the BEST input lag is the original with CRT.
Will there be a jailbreak like the NT mini?
No one knows.
There will most likely be firmware to play SNES ROMS from SD card and to play NT mini cores from the 8-bit era also. ON the other hand, as far as other 16-bit cores besides SNES, I doubt there will be cores available for marketing purposes. Other 16-bit consoles like the Genesis will be sold separately. Analogue plans on making other consoles over the coming years. They will milk this. That's how you make money. Lookout for the Mega NT, the Turbo NT, the Neo NT, etc, etc.
I agree. I do not see them giving away all 16-bit cores for free on a $200 system. Why? It cost too much in time, energy, and money in R&D. The higher graphically the core, the more complex it gets to develop. The 8-bit era cores are easier are write, probably could take just weeks or months to write. 16-bit era cores could take at least a year to write. Imagine how long 32-bit era could take, possibly years? I believe the reason Kevtris released all those cores for the NT mini is because of the high price of the console. I mean it was $500 for God's sake! He needed to at the time to somehow drive sales of the NT mini and to justify the premium price. Do not expect him to do that again. Like I already said, a Super NT jailbreak with capability to play SNES ROMS off SD card and 8-bit cores ported from the NT mini is likely certain. Maybe, just maybe we'll see an NES adapter produced to play carts on the Super NT. I could also see them ceasing to produce the NT mini due to production cost, thus porting the NT mini to the Super NT.
Also, I forgot to mention, Kevtris already had all those 8-bit cores developed years in advance.
Is the video playing on the tv when the TV/monitor is NOT fullscreen the actual source or are you "photoshop"'ing the video into a blank turned off device to look like it's playing on that said device? It looks too clean IMO to be a recording of the device playing the game. Cameras tend to not record screens very well.
This was direct capture
Don't play games on a TV if you are worried about lag, play it on a computer monitor.
You can never get to zero lag.
A CRT display has basically no lag between the video input signal and the display.
However that still means there's a 16.7 ms lag between the top of the display and the bottom. (60 fps is 16.7 ms a frame.)
So measuring something at the bottom of the screen means an extra 16.7 ms of delay vs measuring something at the top of the screen.
Then there's the CPU, and the PPU.
The PPU in a real system should be running no more than about 1 scanline ahead of the picture output on the CRT (And most of that delay is the sprites; the backgrounds are quicker to process.)
The other thing is the game logic and input.
Unless the developer was kinda crazy, you're probably only sampling input once per frame. Probably during vblank.
You sample input, if it came in at the top of a frame, or just after you last sampled it, that could add anything up to 16.7 ms of delay between you pressing the button and the SNES being aware of anything having happened.
Then it does processing. (but probably for most stuff that is directly related to input, all during Vblank, so it shouldn't add any extra lag that wasn't already there.)
End result is best case scenario for a SNES is about 0-33 ms of lag, depending on when exactly you push the button in relation to when the input is read and the screen updated, and where on the screen the stuff your input affects is located. (stuff at the top of the screen inherently has less lag than the bottom.)
The colors off on star fox, the first leave wasn’t set with a red sky.
Every CRT handled colors a bit differently. With digital you are seeing the intended colors.
The first level is red sky if u take a different route in the game. Normal medium hard
You are supposed to keep gamma boost on at all times.
I have balls! I don't need "Save States"
John Smith lol
this device makes me wish I didn't donate my snes carts to children in need.
Buy a flash cart.
Get over it. You did a good thing.
Shinobi006 Godspeed.
The shipping costs just killed it for me, pure greed!
Are you sure Star Fox doesn't run? I thought the SD2SNES is designed to work with FX games.
Positive. SD2SNES does not support the SuperFX. But they have it on their wishlist of features to implement in the future: sd2snes.de/blog/status
I don't get why the SA-1 would be harder to implement though.
It's basically a 65816. If you can emulate/run a SNES itself in an FPGA you've done about 80% of the work of implementing an SA-1 emulation or FPGA core...
By comparison the SuperFX is completely different.
$37 for shipping?! WTF!!! Unreal!!!! 1 chip snes via rgb is so much better if you can find one. Oh well still a clone but it’s the best one out there. Original hardware for me any day over a clone system.
interesting but if you are gonna do a retro console clone you have to include at the very least composite video out, or at best RGB out alongside hdmi
RallyDon82 They are releasing a lag free adapter to do just that. They didn't include it as part of the console to keep costs down.
Great review....but I'll stick to my Raspberry Pi that was $30.00
Dean R English I understand, but this product isn't even as similar as a raspberry pi this is way, way better.
No save states or anti slowdown options is kinda disappointing.
Save states are definitely sorely missed on a device like this
BTW, if you're a true purist, the Super NT runs at 60fps while the original SNES ran slighty higher (60. something) which makes the game play a tad slower/faster than the SNES albeit very tiny.
EDIT: If anything they should've added a save & quit save state to be able to stop playing when needed (without allowing to cheat your way by save cheesing your way through)...
I believe the Super NT actually provides an option to let you run the game at its original speed: The trade-off is that the console frame rate then no longer matches the display frame rate, so you either accept a bit of added lag with an occasional dropped frame, or a periodic screen-tearing to match that 60.09 fps to 59.94 fps for the display.
I miss breath of fire 2
Why do a review if you don't understand the options? You should have done some research, to make your video more useful. Overall it's still one of the better reviews.
I’d prefer to drive people to other creators who can effectively demonstrate that level of technical detail. That is not the focus of this channel.
The shipping cost is the biggest issue with this console..30 bucks and it comes from Hong kong..deal breaker.
I'm going to be one hundred percent real with you I am so confused with this system I like it because it plays Super famicom and Super Nintendo games but I'm also don't like that it's $200 that is ridiculous I'm pretty sure the price of a famicon and a Super Nintendo together is not that price
Yeah, you could probably get the classic consoles for $50 each, maybe less. But if you really want good output from the system on a HDTV it's not exactly trivial:
First, when it comes to SNES/SFC not all versions of the console are created equal. The older revisions are said to have some kind of low-pass filtering or something on the video signal that smudges up the colors a fair bit. The later "1-chip" version has a much cleaner signal but also some minor compatibility issues with certain games.
Then if you want to use it with a HDTV, there's other problems: Some TVs won't even accept the SNES's slightly non-standard framerate of 60.09 fps. A lot of TVs will mishandle the system's "double-strike" 240p video signal and try to deinterlace it. And a lot of recent TVs don't provide any analog video inputs better than composite - which is kind of garbage.
So if you want to connect a SNES to a modern HDTV and get a really good picture out of it, you're probably looking at a bit of a price premium to get a 1-CHIP version (and the only sure-fire way to get a 1-CHIP SNES is to get the redesigned late-model version, but then you'd need to mod it to get RGB out of it) - and then you need a decent quality RGB cable to connect it to a good-quality upscaler made for retro gaming. You could spend $200 for an OSSC for the scaling job, or there's the Retrotink 2x for $100 (one of the most affordable scalers that's good for old game consoles) but then the best you can get is S-Video, unless you get yourself component cables for the SNES (roughly $50) - so when you add it all up you can get to that $200 price point really quick.
The Super NT is a solution that looks and sounds great straight from the box and works well with modern displays without add-ons or adapters. It's more authentic than emulation and both better and more versatile than the typical clone hardware. I agree, it's a significant amount of money to put down to play these old games (especially when emulation exists) but it's a carefully-engineered hardware clone designed from the ground up to perform well with modern TVs. If you care about quality, the price may be worth it.
Very expensive. How much does a second hand snes cost these days?
Less, but it's not an option if you want to use it on a LCD.
I paid $50 AUD for a Super Famicom, and $40 AUD for a PAL snes.
(that's about 33 USD, and 26 USD respectively), though each then cost $20 in shipping. And it's literally only the console. No AV leads (I had some spare from my n64, but also got an RGB scart cable), no power supplies. (3rd party supplies about $15 AUD each; Super Famicom and PAL systems require different PSU's since they have different input voltages)
and no controllers. (but the Super NT doesn't have those either.)
All up a lot cheaper, in fact.
However, the real consoles absolutely suck on an LCD.
I have a decent CRT, though it could be better, since I wish I had RGB scart.
I used to have one of those, but that was in Europe, where that's almost standard.
Where I am now, that was once a fairly common optional feature on TV's, but stopped being common somewhere in the late 90's...
Otherwise, the image quality is truly atrocious. ( I was at a second-hand shop that had a SNES on display attached to an LCD TV - makes me unbelievably happy to have a CRT, even if I'm only using composite.)
So you end up needing an upscaler that can deal with 15khz RGB, Scart cables, and a bunch of other junk just to get image quality that looks decent.
I mean, that output would look better than the SNES on a CRT using composite...
But on the other hand, a good quality CRT with RGB scart input will make that arrangement of a modern TV with an upscaler look fairly bad...
These old consoles are painful without decent CRT televisions to go with them.
That, or expensive converters, and upscalers, but those have a habit of adding serious lag...
nitelite78
Much less and it’s original hardware not some clone system.
"i payed for this with my own phone"
I can’t understand why people buy this machine. It’s expensive. It’s better to buy a real Snes + TV CRT (with beautiful scanlines). More authentic for me.
loulou young I have a CRT and original consoles but its in my kid's room so this would be cool for the living rm
CRT Come
Is 2018 now if you still own a crt you much leave in the past lol
Gaetan quinson they are cheap so why not see the games as they were meant to be seen? If you have a retro console you are already living in the past
i'll never get rid of my apex 20" tube size tv 😊
At this price, The FPGA chip they use probably is a low-end one. Then the program they wrote is amazing.
Its a Cyclone V with 49,000 logic gates. They sell for $70 a piece.
Is there any online community for developing similar projects? I have some Xilinx board and would love to try this.
Considering a 6502 CPU consists of about 3500 transistors while the 65816 used in the SNES is more like 20,000 transistors, and then think about the PPU being far more advanced than it's NES equivalent, having a total of 256 kilobytes of RAM to the NES's... What was it? 2?
For that matter, the SNES audio hardware contains a DSP, but also a dedicated CPU. It's an unusual CPU, but given it's features my guess would be it's similar in complexity to a 6502.
The RAM doesn't count since you'd probably use an external RAM chip.
But that alone means we went from needing to simulate 3500 transistors to needing to simulate about 25000 (7x as many), and we haven't even implemented the Audio DSP, the PPU chips, or any of the remaining logic the system has. (nor any of the menu software...)
I wouldn't be particularly surprised if when you add up all the chips it contains, a SNES is about 10x the circuit complexity of an NES...
OK. I have a XC7K325T with 326,080 logic cells. How do I program my own SNES? :D
It looks like a psone
No save states? That's really dumb.
You can only do that with software emulation, not possible with FPGA based simulation.
You can save if your carts have battery backup.tge system itself can't hold save states as its in essence a real super nes
So for all of us using giant 4k screens , we will have to sit across the street to help with pixelation.
4k makes no difference and nice sharp pixels is kind of the point.
+texasdee slinglead It will look like the image you'd get from using emulators on an LCD screen, very sharp, and also very clean. He's referring to the graphics themselves which are rendered from square pixels by design, but its the size of the screen that will make the pixels appear bigger, and not the resolution. Enabling Scanlines will help to reduce image blockiness.
Jam Iey look , I sucked at the troll school , so they sent me over here.
city lights the super nt supports pseudo hi res blending option. It works on kirby and Jurassic park. Also the upscale is so good that the picture is different than an emulator on a flat panel. Its done in a way where it just works. And the sound... Better quality than the original as snes music was designed digitally than converted to analog. The super nt is pure digital and the sound is as intended