Though anyone who's ordered from Analogue before knows that date could be hint or missed depending on their situation. Though the worst of misses was during Covid so can't really fault them for being 18 months on the first Pocket. They may estimate Q1 2025 but really, we don't know when delivery will happen and considering they haven't shown video of the features for the preorder, makes me wonder what's going on too. Also Chinese New Year is end of Jan/early Feb, so better to estimate later Q1 and be pleasantly surprised if it works out otherwise.
@@jeremy__hopkins Fortunately we aren't in a pandemic scenario anymore with silicon shortages and transport halts. They shouldn't have any problems at all meeting demand going forward unless some other global epidemic occurs this year. People got used to everything being immediately sold out because these companies weren't able to keep up with demand but things are vastly different right now than they were over the past 3 years.
@@shepardcommander9960 I always hope for the best but a preorder is still a preorder with all the risks associated with buying a product that doesn't exist. Though going with a small batch limited edition stock isn't a great solution either. Would've preferred if they had shown footage the A3d in action and something they probably should've done before asking for money.
I think it's important for people to contain their expectations on this. If you've never used an N64 HDMI mod and you're used to playing N64 games via emulation (official or otherwise) you might find the aesthetic of original hardware (and this is as close to original hardware as a modern device can be) to be quite unattractive. It's got a lot of ugly visual effects that turn the sharp 240p pixels into a kind of blurry pixel soup and scaling that mess up to 4K doesn't necessarily give a great result. Analogue's proposed solution is to use the 4K canvas to give you some high quality CRT slotmask and scanline filters in order to soften and cut through the N64's messy look. This is a good solution for gaming on your own TV, however streamers should be wary that compression mangles those type of effects.
I understand what you're saying but on the Mister N64 core there is an option for disabling the Bilinear filtering which is essentially the same as using deblur mode on an RGB mod. I know this because I have an RGB modded N64 with the deblur mode as an option and I have a Mister system, so I can tell that it gives the same effect. I mean we don't know that the Analogue 3D will have the option to disable the blur but you would think that would try to target fixing the blur problem that everyone knocks the N64 for having and actively put a deblur option in all the high-end HDMI mods that I've seen like the Ultra HDMI and Pixel FX one.
@@shock44SquirrelyShock i have the MiSTer core and yes disabling bilinear filter is an option and I expect to see something similar on the Analogue. I was keeping the specifics less techncial in my first post, but the reality is, even with deblur, anti aliasing disabled, dithering disabled, software AA disbaled with game patches, increased color bit rate, every trick in the damn book... The MiSTer core still can't improve the N64's look in a way that I think will have the kind of mass appeal that will please the average gamer who is probably expecting this to look like software emulation with the internal resolution increased.
So many people are seeing Analogue put "4k output" in the marketing and are going to be expecting emulator quality, forgetting the fact that 98% of the N64 games are rendering in 240p and then being upscaled. These will not be internally rendering at 4k like PC emulators. I'm betting there will be tons of these on Ebay within a week (And not from scalpers). lol
@@TooBokoo Exactly. And even if you're aware it's 240p nearest neighbour scaled to 4K, but you're unfamiliar specifically with the N64's visual quirks, you might expect it to look as sharp as PS1 or Saturn do when scaled, but it's honestly even worse than that.
Yeah the n64's memory bus is pretty notorious for being the bottleneck in almost all cases. Kaze Emanuar has brought it up in many of his videos. That's a really good thing to target for speedups without overclocking.
the problem is, in their page, they dont offer "turbo" mode or something like that, i hope they didnt decide to not offer it at the final release product.
The MiSTer core no longer needs any patching (the latency on ddr3 when being shared by os still causes issues, but the core handles it all now on its own). To the player, it's indistinguishable from real hardware. Sub frame times. I'm still preordering this because the fpga is a beast and I'm hoping (but not expecting) jailbreak happens. But MiSTer is great as is with no caveats as far as I know (DD excepted). RAMBus overclocking is huge, though. The 80MHz overclock on MiSTer is nice, but I think this will be even better. That being said, probably staying in the box until a jailbreak.
Keep in mind it doesn't have a secondary openFPGA like the AP does, so a jailbreak will only offer SD card functionality, Analogue have explained that already.
@@Wobble2007 True, but it's a gamble. A gamble for rev one still having the jtag header on board, but not populated with pins or a USB solution. Or a hacked loader in Analogue 3D OS. It's a long shot. As I said...staying in the box.
What would really be interesting is developing new games for this hardware and seeing what the possibilities could be like. You could build classic style games with simple graphics and resolution and just let the system upscale it. I gotta hand it to them. They made one beautifully crafted modern N64!
Sadly, Nintendo has been beating down modem dev. Thankfully the tool chain through libdragon has been sanitized so it no longer uses any gigaleak code, so I hope this happens more. Seeing Portal 64 get shut down was heartbreaking.
@@smittyvanjagermanjenson182 40 Winks & Xeno Crisis have been released on physical media, in box, long after the consoles life. These things are happening
It'll be interesting to see as there are some older games that will never be remastered or ported to modern systems such as licensed games like No Mercy.
Even the Virtual Console and Switch Online versions of Waverace 64 Kawasaki JetSki delete all “Kawasaki” and “JetSki” references so that they can release them today without renewing their license. They also got rid of the Yo-yo from Star Tropics. We always hear about Mike Tyson but never this stuff!
@@emmettturner9452 Never knew that about the Switch version of Wave Race. I never paid past 20 bucks for the online to see that for myself, but that is interesting to know. I'm too used to the branding on Wave Race 64 to play a version without it. Would have sucked if Wave Race came out in a digital age. It would get delisted for those things. That's actually set to happen to Forza Horizon 4 in December. It's getting delisted off Steam and the Xbox Store because it has licensed music or something like that. Could even be branding, I don't know, but the point is, it's going away.
Just wondering... which color did you get?? I ended up picking up black thinking that it would sell out first, but the white one's been out of stock since day one. I'm wondering if people actually picked it over the black one or they just didn't make that many thinking people would pick the black over it?
@@raisinmancereal Picked black cause I’m not into white consoles if I have a choice. The Duo being the exception as I usually go for the japanese variant. ^^
@@raisinmancereal I got it in white. Knew that was going to be my color the second I laid eyes on it. I'm of the same mind as you. Analogue likely looked at their sales analytics for the Pocket and Duo and saw the black ones were more popular, so with the 3D they limited the white ones and prioritized resources to making more of the black. Using some big brain logic here, but there's simply no way that they made the same amount of each, yet one color sold out in 4 hours while the other one is fully in stock nearly a week later. People love white, but it isn't *THAT* popular. Either way, it's just a color. They're all gonna function the same way. Black: Sleek and stealthy. White: Clean and pops. Just depends on what you like more. I like my electronics to stand out, especially when they're expensive, so white was a no brainer for me. I think most people prefer the sleek subdued look of black though.
@@TheSixthSLoT I almost did the same, just thought that it looked more Dreamcast looking than OG N64. Really the OG N64 was more dark grayish than black, but figured it was closer. I could already imagine Analogue making a transparent “atomic purple” or whatever later on that I’d want more so I’ll just settle with whatever I get now. Not that I can afford getting every version neways.
@@raisinmancereal They’re definitely doing special editions. My white one is going in the living room as soon as they come out with a gold one or a glow in the dark one. I’d be careful about buying a transparent one. People who bought the transparent Pockets are already complaining that they’re prone to cracking.
They need to get an European distributor. The $70 shipping + $30 customs fee + $75 sales tax make it 425 EUR (after banking fees $1=1EUR). If they distribute from within Europe then they could hit 300 EUR delivered (or 310 EUR with signed-for delivery) as they would have commercial exchange rates ($1 = 0.95 EUR after fees), the shipping drops by $60, the $30 customs fee vanishes and the sales tax is significantly smaller as it isn't being paid on shipping / customers (it's included in the $10 shipping fee). I haven't even factored in the significantly lower wages for their distribution center (assuming that it's in Germany, Poland or Spain).
I know one of the devs on this. If they say 100% compatibility I believe them. I just wish Analogue would fix their marketing and stop pretending like an FPGA isn't a different form of emulation. But congrats to the team. And Analogue has allowed at least one of the devs to contribute back to the open source emulation scene in regards to new tests and stuff a dev has worked on to help drive better emulation in general.
It's not emulation. Emulation describes a interpretation of the code with code . Therefore it's the wrong term for simulating or recreating og hw like fpga does. ☮️
@@ninetendopesaitama2107 you are still emulating the hardware, just at a different level. And it's all based on the work traditional software emulator devs have spent decades on in reversing and documenting, and decamping, etc.
FPGA is replicating target hardware behaviour with bare-metal performance, 1:1 parity FPGA can actually be used as 1:1 replacement parts in real hardware, for instance N64 RGB Ultra uses an FPGA to replace the entire GPU and RAMDAC, FPGA's give you accurate timings, audio and zero latency, it's a completely different thing to soft emulation, that said, there are levels of FPGA, you can actually make cores that are based of soft cores, not quite the same thing as 1:1 parity hardware based cores, but even cores based of soft cores on FPGA have bare-metal performance, also keep in mind, even though we are only @ gen 1 FPGA (MiSTer/Analogue Pocket/etc) more or less, we already have basically everything perfectly replicated up to 5th generation, I mean sure, improvements will be made, eventually N64 will be 1:1 Parity via MiSTer 2.0 or Replay 2 et cetera, FPGA offers incredible performance that even RISC cant get anywhere near, that said, I believe FPGA+RISC hybrid is the future. What I really want personally is an FPGA PCIe card, so that I can use FPGA based legacy sound hardware, GPU's, legacy CPU's for Amiga hybrid emulation, DOS, Win 98 ans so on.
@@Wobble2007yep. Long and short is emulation uses software to imitate/emulate the console hardware. Which is why it's so inefficient and often needs a device much more powerful than the emulated hardware. The fpga is literally recreating the original hardware. They are essentially building an improved n64.
@@joindivision1090 I ordered one in white. Figured I'll move the white one to the living room when they come out with a special edition one. I'll only get another one if they come out with a gold one, or a glow in the dark one. Transparent colors are cool, but I don't know if I'd trust Analogue to make those. People are already complaining that their transparent Analogue pockets crack a bit too easily. I'm guessing the foundation of the see-through plastic isn't quit as sturdy as the solid ABS plastic they usually use.
Pretty far from the dream product, that would be an all out openFPGA multi system console (inc Dreamcast) with an optical drive, RGBS & VGA outputs, and audio up-sampling.
@@MrAdam802 It’s a pretty damn good value for the money. A 4K mod on a standard N64 all by itself usually costs more than this Analogue 3D, which is way more feature set. 4K, VRR, Bluetooth for a variety of wireless controllers, and an SD card slot for emulation. Not bad for 300 bucks after shipping and taxes. And yeah, I know they said you can’t emulate on this thing, but they also said that about the pocket, and then it was cracked the first day it was out. We all know they just say that to keep companies like Nintendo off of them, but this thing is going to double as an emulation box. That’s a huge bang for buck compared to what you can get from the specialty storefront modders. Can’t wait to get this thing.
Worth pointing out that the reason the MiSTer needs compatibility hacks is because of limitations on the DE-10 THAT SAID, I am also skeptical of Analogue's compatibility claim
What I am really, REALLY curious about is their "emulation" of a CRT look. They make a big fuss about it, how it really looks like a CRT, with the "phosphor glow" etc... big words, I wonder how well they will deliver. I'd assume it would be best to play on an OLED to get closest to the glow and true blacks of a CRT.
no rumble no buy tho. A lot of 3rd party controllers out there keep missing this feature makes me just wanna keep playing with the original n64 controller
pretty cool. ill wait. Maybe more colors to come. Nothing wrong with black or white color. N64 did have a bunch of color editions. i kinda wanted clear for the analogue pocket. there was also metal editions. Got the black at launch. It's a keeper for sure. OpenFPGA makes things that much better. those memorial games and consoles.
I love N64, I love the N64 MiSTer core, but I think a lot of people are gonna be really disappointed to see what N64 looks like when integer scaled to 4K, which is what the Analogue 3D does, due to the tiny tile size of N64 textures, when you go past the max ceiling for what looks acceptable, in the N64 case it's 480p, you over expose the N64's textures and things get a little ugly, especially on an OLED or LCD, the only way to negate this is increase the internal rendering resolution, but only soft emulation can do this, N64 can only look respectable on a CRT imo, ideally @ 240p with native scanlines, it's possible Analogue have figured something out, but I'd put money on this not being the case, having messed around with the MiSTer N64 core and using my OSSC Pro to integer scale to high resolutions, once you go past the sweet spot for N64, it's not pretty, 576p is the absolute ceiling, and it gets worse the bigger the display, god help you if you think N64 will look good on a 65 inch OLED display, no matter how good the sub-pixel scaling is. I just wonder if people are expecting the Analogue 3D N64 to be actually rendered in 4K, and not use sub-pixel scaling that it uses, have Analogue made this clear to buyers, I'm not so sure, even Digital Foundries guys seem a little miss informed about it.
I think it's releasing around March 2025 because the 8Bitdo controller release date on Amazon was showing March 19. Unless that release date is a date holder.
I doubt there's much of a point with their business model in 2024. Neo Geo is one of the worst selling consoles simply because it was so expensive. Not to mention, its games these days are crazy expensive. I can't imagine it would be very profitable to put all of that R&D into a new Analogue NEO GEO to sell 500 of them. Unless, of course, they charged $1,000 per unit, which I wouldn't put past them, I suppose.
@@blakewilliams5627 Neo Geo’s expense, limited availability, and Analogue’s premium image could actually be marketable, especially since SNK still exists. Imagine if Analogue started selling an AES clone console with a digital storefront authorized by SNK along with more premium AES carts compatible with the original console (Neo Geo X done right). Collectors and new players would be absolutely scrambling.
Hey John, could you test homebrew and even demoscene stuff on the Analogue 3D, please? Analogue said 100% commercial game support but that doesn't guarantee new stuff will run. MGC 2011, Spellcraft, anything like that that requires a lot of advanced features.
I always hated that thing if I bought one of these and it came with one of those weird three-handed controllers that shit would go right in the trash 😂
When I started collecting in 2015, I told myself to invest in one company and it was Sega. I simply cannot afford to collect every console and brand. As cool as this Analogue product is, I don’t have the games. Therefore I’ll emulate everything else.
So is there going to be a frame rate boost to games out of the box, or not? This possibility was discussed a year ago. If yes, then this should be a selling point in their marketing, but it’s not mentioned, so I don’t think they were able to pull it off. I think a lot of adopters are buying it thinking this will be a feature, but there’s a TechCrunch article from a week ago that flat-out says games will still run at 20-30 fps
Dreamcast is also 10x more powerful than N64, I doubt how it can be made into FPGA inexpensively enough. But even if they can, software emulation for Dreamcast is basically already perfect, and free. There is hardly an incentive to make a dedicated hardware replacement for a Dreamcast. A cheap mini PC and Xbox controllers would do fine. It also lacks games and not that many people had the original discs to be played with. I think if they really want to go that powerful, just skip ahead and do Wii instead. It uses specialized controllers that are not easily replicated using a PC and software emulator. A dedicated complete set of Wii replacement, would be really convenient and kid friendly. For bonus, the Wii is basically also a Gamecube.
The Dreamcast is interesting because the patents for the SH4 have expired and there are free implementations of the SH1 and 2, named J-Core. Unfortunately they seemed to stop at that, it seems. PowerVR should also be easy to implement, as the patent issues should also be non existant and they are still small chips by today's standards. As for GD-ROMs... Good question!
DC FPGA is being worked on, the FPGA dev managed to boot into the DC menu last year, it's been WIP for nearly 2 years, DC FPGA is only around 4-5 years away now.
2:01 will this resolve the fogging effect that developers used to hide the fact that at the frame rate they were going they couldn't push draw distances very far
Do we know if they made their own or did they partner with MazaMars to use his UltraFP64 that was supposedly developed years before FPGAzumspass’ MiSTer core?
Wasn't that used for the N64 Ultra RGB FPGA total GPU/RAMDAC replacement? Ultra RGB N64 is a 1:1 parity total N64 RDP & RAMDAC FPGA replacement board, the rest is original hardware, it would be cool if the MiSTer N64 core got updated with the 1:1 parity RDP code one day, that is if the DE10 Nano could manage it, might not be enough LE for 1:1 parity N64 on MiSTer.
More info, please! :) The only mention when I search: n64 "Ultra RGB" FPGA …is a Reddit post of yours. I know UltraFP64 was developed by first replicating the RCP on an FPGA dev board with an original CPU on a custom daughter board because they first demonstrated it generating graphics like that (running a demo by MarshallH). Never saw it turned into a product though. That said, MarshallH first got into FPGA development due to his work with portablizing the N64 (places like BitBuilt). He made the UltraHDMI digital DAC replacement (for HDMI) in FPGA but that does not replicate the GPU. He went on to work for Analogue on Analogue Pocket and I assume he’s currently a big part of Analogue 3D. If he developed an “Ultra RGB” FPGA GPU/RAMDAC replacement in the mean time, I’m very impressed.
@@emmettturner9452 Well now there are a few more options, you have the original N64 HDMI & RGB Ultra that uses an Altera Cyclone CPLD (FPGA) as a drop-in replacement for the RCP/RAMDAC, which is 1080p max, now you have the N64 Advanced V2, which uses a beefier CPLD to offer 1440p, then you have the 64HD, which uses a Spartan FPGA for up to 720p, the PixelFX N64Digital, a solid option that does up to 1200p, you even have a cheap bang for buck option with a Hispeedido FPGA from Aliexpress that does 720p, you also have the PixelFX Retro GEM HDMI only solution, all of these are drop in FPGA replacements for the RCP/RAMDAC.
So, since the Analogue 3D is an FPGA, does that mean you can load other cores onto it? My assumption would be yes, but it's not mentioned anywhere on the site.
@@Moshugaani Really? I thought the whole point of an FPGA was that it was reprogrammable. Or are they artificially limiting that to only updates of their N64 core?
@@SolarMechanic I was somewhat wrong on my earlier comment. While it's true that Analogue will never officially _offer_ other cores for their consoles, they did make it easy for the community to load their own cores onto the Analogue Pocket via the AnalogueOS. As of firmware version V1.1 it's been very easy to load your own cores onto it. So maybe that's how it'll be with the 3D as well? However on the older Analogue consoles such as the Super NT there is very little change of getting access to the chip or even loading your own custom firmware.
Paying $100-$200 per used game cartridge probably isn't going to appeal to most of us who don't already own a N64 collection. It'll probably have the effect of making N64 games even more expensive. :( At least the MisterFPGA has pretty decent N64 compatibility, despite development on that core coming to a halt this year. Most of the games I'd want to play are already playable or completable on it -- though emulation on PC or mobile remains the better alternative.
N64 games aren't that expensive anymore with a few exceptions. The average price I've seen is between $15 and $50 depending on the title. I doubt the existence of this product will make prices go up because this is such a niche device and the people buying it most likely already have large collections. Prices of a lot of retro Nintendo games have come down because of the Nintendo Switch classic catalogue. Honestly most people don't want to deal with old tech hardware including original carts outside of enthusiasts.
I don't understand the point of these things. I get that hardware emulation is superior but if you're not going to play on original hardware on a CRT why not just use free software emulation?
Because this was designed to play on modern 4k tv's at a hardware level. Not everyone just has CRT's lying around and they're becoming very expensive to buy these days. This system will also have features similar to their other products that will let you use filters, save states, rewind time, etc. As for the emulation you talked about the N64 is actually notoriously difficult to properly emulate through software alone. There are audio, visual glitches and inconsistencies in emulators for this system. I'm not sure why because it's above my head but I find it interesting because as far as I know the PS1 does not have this problem. The PS1 emulation scene is actually quite good.
@@shepardcommander9960 I understand that CRTs are a pain in the ass, I just meant if you're going to emulate, why not software? I didn't know N64 software emulation was still in a rough spot tbh, thought it would be perfect by now so fair enough.
@@Gr00tthis guy actually has no clue what he's talking about, N64 software emulation has been in an excellent state since the release of ParaLLEl plug-ins. These plug-ins allow for low level emulation on modern GPU's, and are incredibly accurate. This doesn't even begin to cover the still-maturing recompilation tool, which allows N64 games to be recompiled for PC in seconds. It has its limits, and each game needs to be recompiled individually, but within the next year or two, many N64 games will be available to play natively on PC, no emulation required. So no, N64 is not "still in a rough spot".
6th gen isn't going to happen, at least not within the next decade. PS2, Gamecube, and OGXBOX are off the table. There has been murmurings of Dreamcast, which may see an analogue release, but that's about it
The idea is to play original dreamcast disc which are based off the GD-ROM format . They are talking about that .there be no point for a dreamcast analogue console if it only read burned disc , that's not why people buy these consoles . They wanna play thier original games on modern hardware
Nintendo should really remaster or remake more N64 games rather than GC. Those games are amazing but really could benefit from improved frame rates & modern controls (if necessary). GC games already ran well, and like with Paper Mario TTYD, there's a chance Nintendo could actually make them run *WORSE* than the GC original! I'd rather have HD 60 fps N64 games than prettied up, 30 fps GC games.
I just don't know what I'm expecting if i bought one and i come from the og nintendo generation can someone please explain whats the hyped of this console.
I can't wait for mine, I'm sick of cheaper (but still not cheap) scalers, and I refuse to buy a retrotink. This is as was said here a perfect out of the box system and beside their FOMO crap the company seems fine and frankly they can sell 100 more varients but why would I care, I have one ordered already and have the maturity to not collect devices because of colors. As long as it works as advertised with my existing game and controller collection I will be set for years to come playing these classics in 4k.
Is Dreamcast/NAOMI borderline for an affordable FPGA? I don't know for certain but it feels like an FPGA that would be capable of doing Dreamcast would be way too expensive for a consumer device. I'm curious though!
I swear the laziness of gamers blows my mind. The fact they'll spend hundreds of dollars to do what any emulator can do with a very small amount of effort is crazy.
I'm trying to figure out why they haven't been sued and shut down by Nintendo. We all know how Nintendo salivates at the thought of suing people into oblivion anytime something cool or creative is made or released that feature even a hint of their logo.
Nintendo has no grounds as this company isn't stealing content via software emulation or roms. They just built a better machine that's capable of running official N64 cartridges.
Probably a few things. They're based out of Hong Kong. The 20 year patent may have expired so it is possible to reverse engineers the hardware as long as the FPGA code is clean. Which Kevtris, the lead engineer, was one of the early console to FPGA devs. The design, while it harkens back to N64, Analogue is very careful not to use Nintendo trademarks or Nintendo developed games in their marketing materials. That's why Analogue 3d is embossed on the console, not N64 and the games are an assortment of 3rd party games. The one thing Nintendo could ding them for is the jailbreaks and loading ROMs directly from the console. Though since it doesn't come with ROMS and the jailbreaks, while developed internally, are released as a secondary feature not related to Analogue, there's not much Nintendo can do from a legal standpoint. It's just a high quality clone console versus a rom cart or modchip for their latest systems.
@@justinreschke3642 You don't know what you're talking about. Emulators don't contain proprietary code, it's all reverse-engineered code. Emulators get shut down because its creators don't have millions to take this to courts so Nintendo's legal intimidation tactics work.
Dreamcast is all well and good, but where is the ps1 analog console. Was the more popular console, do you think it using CDs something analog haven't done yet is the reason to skip it?
@@DarkmoonWinter Nowhere near the same thing as real hardware PS2, the PS2 is an analogue bare-metal console, which not only has 0ms latency video via it's CRT Controller (PCRTC) chipset which literally races the beam on a CRT, it has zero ms input response, and getting accurate RGB analogue video from an emulator is not a simple task, and even if you do, you will have a minimum of 35-40 ms latency, and that's on a good high-end Ryzen based PC (which makes many game impossible to play via soft PS2 emulation, like Space Channel Number 5 for instance), even DynaRes is far from bare-metal performance with accurate audio and perfect input fidelity like you get with real hardware, only FPGA will ever be able to achieve that, the same is true for all bare-metal analogue systems, which run right through to the 360/PS3, which whilst did have some OS overheads, much less for the PS3's very minimal crossbar UI based OS and the OG Blades OS for the 360, the 360 had much higher latency down the line due to poorly optimized and much heavier kernel/OS overheads from the so called updated OS, both consoles still had analogue formats with analogue RAMDAC's, worked best at EDTV resolutions in analogue mode, the digital outputs not only added latency, it significantly reduced frame-rates due to running at 720/1080p, the 360/PS3 were much better consoles and at their respective cores 480/576p 60Hz analogue systems that ran @ sub 3-4ms latency, which again only FPGA will be able to replicate, unless someone ever creates some kind of superfast translation layer for a RISC platform or something along those lines that uses DynaRes or similar. Beyond that generation though, the best you can really hope for or need for that matter is a translation layer, much like is being done now with Xbox One, which enables incredibly fast Xbox One performance in a Windows environment, kind of how Proton for Steam OS works, which will also potentially be a great way to emulate Xbox One going forward, though that may cause some extra latency, a translation layer on a translation layer, but it could be streamlines somehow, past the 360?PS3/Wii/DS/3DS, FPGA will not be needed, as consoles were purely digital based with heavy set OS overheads, so were far from bare-metal, making FPGA redundant for those systems. A more interesting prospect then, might be porting games from those higher latency console systems to a bare-metal FPGA system, so your favourite PS4 games might one day be enjoyed with 0ms latency, don't get too excited though, that would be 25-30+ years away, and they mighten be emulated on a low latency RISC based platform by then.
I doubt they'll be able to. Sony will still be selling tons of PS2 games on their digital shops, or still making a lot of new games off existing PS2 IPs in general. There's no way Sony wouldn't slap them with a cease and desist.
#6 of the A3 footnotes states no openFPGA. It is possible Analogue could release their own cores like they did with the NT Mini/Noir but it is highly unlikely at the price point. Or they could release a series of cart adapters for older systems but again, that's also unlikely because they would've included that information in the marketing. My guess is it'll play N64 games at 4k and maybe ROMs with a jailbreak.
Sounds cool on paper, but I'm shocked that people are preordering this without seeing any videos, gameplay, or third-party testing to verify the claims made about this product.
The big three companies (Nintendo, Sony, & Microsoft) going forward should include FPGA hardware on their modern consoles for arguably better backwards compatibility. We all know they won't because the price, regardless if it's not relatively expensive, they don't care about their past, and the number one reason why is they "don't make enough money" from older titles. So why waste time/ money on the minority of the target audience.
It would be amazing if Nintendo did an official "all-in-one" FPGA console that would run all of their retro games. It could have cartridge slot with adapters to run original cartridges and they could also sell ROMs via internal eShop.
Regarding FPGA, sure PS2 would likely be too difficult at the moment, but given how tech increases, in a few years time it will be achievable. Go back 5 years and you would have struggled to do N64.
I don't know that they'll even be able to. Sony will still be selling tons of PS2 games on their digital shops, or still making a lot of new games off existing PS2 IPs in general. There's no way Sony wouldn't slap them with a cease and desist.
@@TooBokoo it’s not piracy though. They would simply be producing an FPGA device which can hardware emulate a PS2. There’s nothing Sony can do about it (same as Nintendo can’t) as long as Analogue don’t use their name (which is a why the Analogue 3D isn’t called the N64 etc.).
If you own a Polymega, there is no reason to get this. I purchased the Analogue Duo.. Very disappointing PC Engine kit. While the Polymega does not play all of my PC Engine and PC Engine CD games. It plays nearly all of them perfectly (of which I own about 150 games.. 3 of which do not run or do not run perfectly.).. I love the CRT filter the Polymega offers as well. Furthermore playing Perfect Dark on the Polymega is very nice..
One thing that might affect a certain percentage of hard core collectors is no expansion slot on the bottom for the 64DD. Kind of weird to include all of these features, including the expansion pack, but leave out 64DD support as well as no DAC support. Though I guess DAC support is more understandable considering it's been long in development for the Pocket and isn't available for the Duo yet. So there's still reasons to keep around an original N64 with an HDMI mod if someone wants carts, 64DD support and analog video out.
@@emmettturner9452 Yes, I understand and it's possible Analogue might support it through a jailbreak as well. Though if the A3d is being sold to collectors, an Everdrive isn't going to cut it for some.
@@targetrender9529There is sort of this odd mentality that obscurity means, "why should I care?" That's true with DAC support and CRT support as well. There's lots of reasons why. Everything from preservation, to matching original peripherals which aren't possible in software emulation, to the same reason people would want carts in this day and again. Of those 15k who purchased a 64DD, maybe some are looking for a way to play them on a modern televisions and would purchase an A3d. There's also a claim of playing 100% of N64 library. Which may be true but should include a footnote that doesn't include the 64DD library. It means there's an additional reason, beyond analog video out, to hold on to original hardware. Think that's important to remember with Analogue's "reimagining," of the hardware.
Strangely, the Warrior 64 doesn’t fit my backup devices that use the EXT port on the bottom or the ones that fit in the cartridge slot. Heck, it doesn’t even fit the DX256, which just slots in the top with an original game and provides 255 extra EEPROM save slots. The Analogue 3D looks like it might fit a DX256 or V64jr but obviously not full Doctor V64 with CD-ROM. Point is, the Warrior 64 shell should’ve just walled off the EXT port if they weren’t going to fit on top of 64DD, V64, CD64, etc and perhaps this is why Analogue 3D left it out entirely.
The black console is still available for preorder as of 10/26. And they’re updated the shipping date to Q1 2025.
Though anyone who's ordered from Analogue before knows that date could be hint or missed depending on their situation. Though the worst of misses was during Covid so can't really fault them for being 18 months on the first Pocket. They may estimate Q1 2025 but really, we don't know when delivery will happen and considering they haven't shown video of the features for the preorder, makes me wonder what's going on too. Also Chinese New Year is end of Jan/early Feb, so better to estimate later Q1 and be pleasantly surprised if it works out otherwise.
@@jeremy__hopkinsthey've never hit their initial ship date in the history of the company. There's always delays
@@jeremy__hopkins Fortunately we aren't in a pandemic scenario anymore with silicon shortages and transport halts. They shouldn't have any problems at all meeting demand going forward unless some other global epidemic occurs this year. People got used to everything being immediately sold out because these companies weren't able to keep up with demand but things are vastly different right now than they were over the past 3 years.
@@shepardcommander9960 I always hope for the best but a preorder is still a preorder with all the risks associated with buying a product that doesn't exist. Though going with a small batch limited edition stock isn't a great solution either. Would've preferred if they had shown footage the A3d in action and something they probably should've done before asking for money.
I wanna see Turok 2 played on this. That would be the best game on it. The graphics are fantastic
I think it's important for people to contain their expectations on this.
If you've never used an N64 HDMI mod and you're used to playing N64 games via emulation (official or otherwise) you might find the aesthetic of original hardware (and this is as close to original hardware as a modern device can be) to be quite unattractive.
It's got a lot of ugly visual effects that turn the sharp 240p pixels into a kind of blurry pixel soup and scaling that mess up to 4K doesn't necessarily give a great result.
Analogue's proposed solution is to use the 4K canvas to give you some high quality CRT slotmask and scanline filters in order to soften and cut through the N64's messy look. This is a good solution for gaming on your own TV, however streamers should be wary that compression mangles those type of effects.
I understand what you're saying but on the Mister N64 core there is an option for disabling the Bilinear filtering which is essentially the same as using deblur mode on an RGB mod. I know this because I have an RGB modded N64 with the deblur mode as an option and I have a Mister system, so I can tell that it gives the same effect. I mean we don't know that the Analogue 3D will have the option to disable the blur but you would think that would try to target fixing the blur problem that everyone knocks the N64 for having and actively put a deblur option in all the high-end HDMI mods that I've seen like the Ultra HDMI and Pixel FX one.
@@shock44SquirrelyShock i have the MiSTer core and yes disabling bilinear filter is an option and I expect to see something similar on the Analogue. I was keeping the specifics less techncial in my first post, but the reality is, even with deblur, anti aliasing disabled, dithering disabled, software AA disbaled with game patches, increased color bit rate, every trick in the damn book... The MiSTer core still can't improve the N64's look in a way that I think will have the kind of mass appeal that will please the average gamer who is probably expecting this to look like software emulation with the internal resolution increased.
So many people are seeing Analogue put "4k output" in the marketing and are going to be expecting emulator quality, forgetting the fact that 98% of the N64 games are rendering in 240p and then being upscaled. These will not be internally rendering at 4k like PC emulators. I'm betting there will be tons of these on Ebay within a week (And not from scalpers). lol
@@TooBokoo Exactly. And even if you're aware it's 240p nearest neighbour scaled to 4K, but you're unfamiliar specifically with the N64's visual quirks, you might expect it to look as sharp as PS1 or Saturn do when scaled, but it's honestly even worse than that.
Yeah the n64's memory bus is pretty notorious for being the bottleneck in almost all cases. Kaze Emanuar has brought it up in many of his videos. That's a really good thing to target for speedups without overclocking.
the problem is, in their page, they dont offer "turbo" mode or something like that, i hope they didnt decide to not offer it at the final release product.
The other bottleneck is the texture memory being low as hell. Along with cartridges being the other bottleneck.
The 8BitDo N64 controller looks like it's a retool of the mold for their Ultimate Controller line.
wish it had the opening for a Transfer pack
@@Quiqueleal85 The next best thing is the system having controller ports. So you can plug in an OEM controller to use the transfer pak.
The MiSTer core no longer needs any patching (the latency on ddr3 when being shared by os still causes issues, but the core handles it all now on its own). To the player, it's indistinguishable from real hardware. Sub frame times. I'm still preordering this because the fpga is a beast and I'm hoping (but not expecting) jailbreak happens. But MiSTer is great as is with no caveats as far as I know (DD excepted).
RAMBus overclocking is huge, though. The 80MHz overclock on MiSTer is nice, but I think this will be even better. That being said, probably staying in the box until a jailbreak.
Keep in mind it doesn't have a secondary openFPGA like the AP does, so a jailbreak will only offer SD card functionality, Analogue have explained that already.
@@Wobble2007 True, but it's a gamble. A gamble for rev one still having the jtag header on board, but not populated with pins or a USB solution. Or a hacked loader in Analogue 3D OS. It's a long shot. As I said...staying in the box.
Interested to see if Goldeneye framerates get a boost.
Frame rate and in 4k chef's kiss
Runs @ 60 FPS on MiSTer FPGA, so does Perfect Dark.
What would really be interesting is developing new games for this hardware and seeing what the possibilities could be like. You could build classic style games with simple graphics and resolution and just let the system upscale it.
I gotta hand it to them. They made one beautifully crafted modern N64!
Not being limited to cartridge capacities is a game changer on its own.
Sadly, Nintendo has been beating down modem dev. Thankfully the tool chain through libdragon has been sanitized so it no longer uses any gigaleak code, so I hope this happens more. Seeing Portal 64 get shut down was heartbreaking.
@@smittyvanjagermanjenson182 40 Winks & Xeno Crisis have been released on physical media, in box, long after the consoles life. These things are happening
Super Kiwi 64 & MacBat 64 physical releases would be cool. Maybe even of the books releases of Ship of Harkinian 1 & 2.
It'll be interesting to see as there are some older games that will never be remastered or ported to modern systems such as licensed games like No Mercy.
Even the Virtual Console and Switch Online versions of Waverace 64 Kawasaki JetSki delete all “Kawasaki” and “JetSki” references so that they can release them today without renewing their license. They also got rid of the Yo-yo from Star Tropics. We always hear about Mike Tyson but never this stuff!
@@emmettturner9452 Never knew that about the Switch version of Wave Race. I never paid past 20 bucks for the online to see that for myself, but that is interesting to know. I'm too used to the branding on Wave Race 64 to play a version without it. Would have sucked if Wave Race came out in a digital age. It would get delisted for those things. That's actually set to happen to Forza Horizon 4 in December. It's getting delisted off Steam and the Xbox Store because it has licensed music or something like that. Could even be branding, I don't know, but the point is, it's going away.
Already preordered. Can’t wait. 😁
Just wondering... which color did you get?? I ended up picking up black thinking that it would sell out first, but the white one's been out of stock since day one. I'm wondering if people actually picked it over the black one or they just didn't make that many thinking people would pick the black over it?
@@raisinmancereal
Picked black cause I’m not into white consoles if I have a choice.
The Duo being the exception as I usually go for the japanese variant. ^^
@@raisinmancereal I got it in white. Knew that was going to be my color the second I laid eyes on it. I'm of the same mind as you. Analogue likely looked at their sales analytics for the Pocket and Duo and saw the black ones were more popular, so with the 3D they limited the white ones and prioritized resources to making more of the black. Using some big brain logic here, but there's simply no way that they made the same amount of each, yet one color sold out in 4 hours while the other one is fully in stock nearly a week later. People love white, but it isn't *THAT* popular. Either way, it's just a color. They're all gonna function the same way.
Black: Sleek and stealthy.
White: Clean and pops.
Just depends on what you like more. I like my electronics to stand out, especially when they're expensive, so white was a no brainer for me. I think most people prefer the sleek subdued look of black though.
@@TheSixthSLoT I almost did the same, just thought that it looked more Dreamcast looking than OG N64. Really the OG N64 was more dark grayish than black, but figured it was closer. I could already imagine Analogue making a transparent “atomic purple” or whatever later on that I’d want more so I’ll just settle with whatever I get now. Not that I can afford getting every version neways.
@@raisinmancereal They’re definitely doing special editions. My white one is going in the living room as soon as they come out with a gold one or a glow in the dark one. I’d be careful about buying a transparent one. People who bought the transparent Pockets are already complaining that they’re prone to cracking.
They need to get an European distributor. The $70 shipping + $30 customs fee + $75 sales tax make it 425 EUR (after banking fees $1=1EUR). If they distribute from within Europe then they could hit 300 EUR delivered (or 310 EUR with signed-for delivery) as they would have commercial exchange rates ($1 = 0.95 EUR after fees), the shipping drops by $60, the $30 customs fee vanishes and the sales tax is significantly smaller as it isn't being paid on shipping / customers (it's included in the $10 shipping fee). I haven't even factored in the significantly lower wages for their distribution center (assuming that it's in Germany, Poland or Spain).
And they do not ship to Czechia, because...reasons? Could not buy the Analogue pocket and was basically told to f--- off by their customer support.
I know one of the devs on this. If they say 100% compatibility I believe them. I just wish Analogue would fix their marketing and stop pretending like an FPGA isn't a different form of emulation. But congrats to the team. And Analogue has allowed at least one of the devs to contribute back to the open source emulation scene in regards to new tests and stuff a dev has worked on to help drive better emulation in general.
What is different between FPGA and traditional emulation anyway?
It's not emulation. Emulation describes a interpretation of the code with code . Therefore it's the wrong term for simulating or recreating og hw like fpga does. ☮️
@@ninetendopesaitama2107 you are still emulating the hardware, just at a different level. And it's all based on the work traditional software emulator devs have spent decades on in reversing and documenting, and decamping, etc.
FPGA is replicating target hardware behaviour with bare-metal performance, 1:1 parity FPGA can actually be used as 1:1 replacement parts in real hardware, for instance N64 RGB Ultra uses an FPGA to replace the entire GPU and RAMDAC, FPGA's give you accurate timings, audio and zero latency, it's a completely different thing to soft emulation, that said, there are levels of FPGA, you can actually make cores that are based of soft cores, not quite the same thing as 1:1 parity hardware based cores, but even cores based of soft cores on FPGA have bare-metal performance, also keep in mind, even though we are only @ gen 1 FPGA (MiSTer/Analogue Pocket/etc) more or less, we already have basically everything perfectly replicated up to 5th generation, I mean sure, improvements will be made, eventually N64 will be 1:1 Parity via MiSTer 2.0 or Replay 2 et cetera, FPGA offers incredible performance that even RISC cant get anywhere near, that said, I believe FPGA+RISC hybrid is the future.
What I really want personally is an FPGA PCIe card, so that I can use FPGA based legacy sound hardware, GPU's, legacy CPU's for Amiga hybrid emulation, DOS, Win 98 ans so on.
@@Wobble2007yep.
Long and short is emulation uses software to imitate/emulate the console hardware. Which is why it's so inefficient and often needs a device much more powerful than the emulated hardware.
The fpga is literally recreating the original hardware. They are essentially building an improved n64.
4:04 I love the sign language there, teddy bear~
Ordered one! cant wait, this is the dream product from Analogue we've wanted!
its not the n64 though.
@@joindivision1090 I ordered one in white. Figured I'll move the white one to the living room when they come out with a special edition one. I'll only get another one if they come out with a gold one, or a glow in the dark one. Transparent colors are cool, but I don't know if I'd trust Analogue to make those. People are already complaining that their transparent Analogue pockets crack a bit too easily. I'm guessing the foundation of the see-through plastic isn't quit as sturdy as the solid ABS plastic they usually use.
@@milesbbop9563It's an FPGA N64.
Pretty far from the dream product, that would be an all out openFPGA multi system console (inc Dreamcast) with an optical drive, RGBS & VGA outputs, and audio up-sampling.
@@MrAdam802 It’s a pretty damn good value for the money. A 4K mod on a standard N64 all by itself usually costs more than this Analogue 3D, which is way more feature set. 4K, VRR, Bluetooth for a variety of wireless controllers, and an SD card slot for emulation. Not bad for 300 bucks after shipping and taxes. And yeah, I know they said you can’t emulate on this thing, but they also said that about the pocket, and then it was cracked the first day it was out. We all know they just say that to keep companies like Nintendo off of them, but this thing is going to double as an emulation box. That’s a huge bang for buck compared to what you can get from the specialty storefront modders. Can’t wait to get this thing.
I don’t think this product actually exists yet as the only pictures they have are 3D renders and not actual pictures
A PS2 would be a dream. I suspect it will stay a dream
Ordered the white model within the first 5 minutes of it launching. Can’t wait to enjoy it.
Worth pointing out that the reason the MiSTer needs compatibility hacks is because of limitations on the DE-10
THAT SAID, I am also skeptical of Analogue's compatibility claim
What I am really, REALLY curious about is their "emulation" of a CRT look. They make a big fuss about it, how it really looks like a CRT, with the "phosphor glow" etc... big words, I wonder how well they will deliver. I'd assume it would be best to play on an OLED to get closest to the glow and true blacks of a CRT.
no rumble no buy tho. A lot of 3rd party controllers out there keep missing this feature makes me just wanna keep playing with the original n64 controller
pretty cool.
ill wait. Maybe more colors to come. Nothing wrong with black or white color.
N64 did have a bunch of color editions.
i kinda wanted clear for the analogue pocket. there was also metal editions. Got the black at launch. It's a keeper for sure. OpenFPGA makes things that much better. those memorial games and consoles.
I would like to see Golden eye, Diddy kong racing, Perfect Dark, Command & conquer, Turok running at a locked frame rate 👍
The N64Digital HDMI mod from Black Dog is now known as the RetroGEM for N64, as PixelFX have incorporated it into their RetroGEM umbrella of products.
I love N64, I love the N64 MiSTer core, but I think a lot of people are gonna be really disappointed to see what N64 looks like when integer scaled to 4K, which is what the Analogue 3D does, due to the tiny tile size of N64 textures, when you go past the max ceiling for what looks acceptable, in the N64 case it's 480p, you over expose the N64's textures and things get a little ugly, especially on an OLED or LCD, the only way to negate this is increase the internal rendering resolution, but only soft emulation can do this, N64 can only look respectable on a CRT imo, ideally @ 240p with native scanlines, it's possible Analogue have figured something out, but I'd put money on this not being the case, having messed around with the MiSTer N64 core and using my OSSC Pro to integer scale to high resolutions, once you go past the sweet spot for N64, it's not pretty, 576p is the absolute ceiling, and it gets worse the bigger the display, god help you if you think N64 will look good on a 65 inch OLED display, no matter how good the sub-pixel scaling is.
I just wonder if people are expecting the Analogue 3D N64 to be actually rendered in 4K, and not use sub-pixel scaling that it uses, have Analogue made this clear to buyers, I'm not so sure, even Digital Foundries guys seem a little miss informed about it.
I think it's releasing around March 2025 because the 8Bitdo controller release date on Amazon was showing March 19. Unless that release date is a date holder.
I still want a proper bluetooth controller for my Analogue Duo. I need turbo switches.
You guys rock I really enjoy video game tech and technology in general. I watch your videos quite often.
I imagine that using this console with the Retrotink 4K it has to look very good.
Why would you need to? It’s already 4k
@@shadowbotz4293 To view the image with scanlines and dithering.
@@shadowbotz4293To view the image with scanlines and dithering.
I’m surprised they haven’t gone back to their roots, and made a new Neo-Geo AES/MVS system.
Same. The Duo probably should’ve been sold with Neo Geo CD support and an optional expansion for AES/MVS carts.
Thats what i was hoping for - An AES Clone. ( Or an FPGA Clone of an original Playstation )
I doubt there's much of a point with their business model in 2024. Neo Geo is one of the worst selling consoles simply because it was so expensive. Not to mention, its games these days are crazy expensive. I can't imagine it would be very profitable to put all of that R&D into a new Analogue NEO GEO to sell 500 of them. Unless, of course, they charged $1,000 per unit, which I wouldn't put past them, I suppose.
@@blakewilliams5627 Neo Geo’s expense, limited availability, and Analogue’s premium image could actually be marketable, especially since SNK still exists. Imagine if Analogue started selling an AES clone console with a digital storefront authorized by SNK along with more premium AES carts compatible with the original console (Neo Geo X done right). Collectors and new players would be absolutely scrambling.
I wish we had FPGA PS1, PS2, Dreamcast, Xbox.
Hey John, could you test homebrew and even demoscene stuff on the Analogue 3D, please? Analogue said 100% commercial game support but that doesn't guarantee new stuff will run. MGC 2011, Spellcraft, anything like that that requires a lot of advanced features.
I think part of the charm of the N64 is it's whacky control pad. It's a shame they tried to modernise the pad.
You can still use original n64 controllers and there are 3rd party ones available that mimic the look of the original that you could also use.
I always hated that thing if I bought one of these and it came with one of those weird three-handed controllers that shit would go right in the trash 😂
you can always use original controller and any clone N64 controller. You can also use the NSO N64 controller via a dongle
It doesn’t actually include any controller.
@@FlyBird I still have 2 N64 controllers but this thing should come with a controller. 😮
I think a Saturn would have to come first
cant wait to play wave race 64 on that bad boy
The pictured controller has a pretty big oversight on the analog stick, it needs to be notched like the OG N64
N64 analogue also uses a mecha optical sensor, for which many, or most, N64 games are fine-tuned for, especial first party Nintendo games.
When I started collecting in 2015, I told myself to invest in one company and it was Sega. I simply cannot afford to collect every console and brand. As cool as this Analogue product is, I don’t have the games. Therefore I’ll emulate everything else.
So is there going to be a frame rate boost to games out of the box, or not? This possibility was discussed a year ago.
If yes, then this should be a selling point in their marketing, but it’s not mentioned, so I don’t think they were able to pull it off.
I think a lot of adopters are buying it thinking this will be a feature, but there’s a TechCrunch article from a week ago that flat-out says games will still run at 20-30 fps
If it had OpenFPGA like the Pocket, it'd be worth the $400 CDN it ends up at. Without it, I'll get Taki's One
I’m wondering how possible an FPGA Saturn would be.
Complete coincidence that it finally came out after the FPGAzumspass MiSTer core got finished
Ai lol, it is open source to be fair though.
The main Dreamcast issue would be the GD-ROM drive, surely?
Dreamcast is also 10x more powerful than N64, I doubt how it can be made into FPGA inexpensively enough.
But even if they can, software emulation for Dreamcast is basically already perfect, and free. There is hardly an incentive to make a dedicated hardware replacement for a Dreamcast. A cheap mini PC and Xbox controllers would do fine. It also lacks games and not that many people had the original discs to be played with.
I think if they really want to go that powerful, just skip ahead and do Wii instead. It uses specialized controllers that are not easily replicated using a PC and software emulator. A dedicated complete set of Wii replacement, would be really convenient and kid friendly.
For bonus, the Wii is basically also a Gamecube.
I purchased the white console 🎉 I think this is gonna be very interesting and an excellent n64 console
The Dreamcast is interesting because the patents for the SH4 have expired and there are free implementations of the SH1 and 2, named J-Core.
Unfortunately they seemed to stop at that, it seems. PowerVR should also be easy to implement, as the patent issues should also be non existant and they are still small chips by today's standards.
As for GD-ROMs... Good question!
N64 Pro
Does it support the transfer pack?
In theory it should since the original n64 controller will work on it.
Dreamcast next please 🙏
Just wait for MARS, mate 😂😂😂😂
DC FPGA is being worked on, the FPGA dev managed to boot into the DC menu last year, it's been WIP for nearly 2 years, DC FPGA is only around 4-5 years away now.
Forgot to mention FOMO in the title, as well as the laziest N64 controller ever (Ultimate controller with the N64 buttons slapped on it)
I love the idea. I still play my N64, so for me, it's perfect. Nintendo should sue anyone because they already made their money back in the late 90s
Controller release date is March 19, 2025. -That is likely the release date for console as well.
We need PlayStation1 like that
2:01 will this resolve the fogging effect that developers used to hide the fact that at the frame rate they were going they couldn't push draw distances very far
no
Next step should be consolazing the DS/3DS
Do we know if they made their own or did they partner with MazaMars to use his UltraFP64 that was supposedly developed years before FPGAzumspass’ MiSTer core?
Wasn't that used for the N64 Ultra RGB FPGA total GPU/RAMDAC replacement? Ultra RGB N64 is a 1:1 parity total N64 RDP & RAMDAC FPGA replacement board, the rest is original hardware, it would be cool if the MiSTer N64 core got updated with the 1:1 parity RDP code one day, that is if the DE10 Nano could manage it, might not be enough LE for 1:1 parity N64 on MiSTer.
More info, please! :)
The only mention when I search:
n64 "Ultra RGB" FPGA
…is a Reddit post of yours. I know UltraFP64 was developed by first replicating the RCP on an FPGA dev board with an original CPU on a custom daughter board because they first demonstrated it generating graphics like that (running a demo by MarshallH). Never saw it turned into a product though.
That said, MarshallH first got into FPGA development due to his work with portablizing the N64 (places like BitBuilt). He made the UltraHDMI digital DAC replacement (for HDMI) in FPGA but that does not replicate the GPU. He went on to work for Analogue on Analogue Pocket and I assume he’s currently a big part of Analogue 3D. If he developed an “Ultra RGB” FPGA GPU/RAMDAC replacement in the mean time, I’m very impressed.
@@emmettturner9452 Well now there are a few more options, you have the original N64 HDMI & RGB Ultra that uses an Altera Cyclone CPLD (FPGA) as a drop-in replacement for the RCP/RAMDAC, which is 1080p max, now you have the N64 Advanced V2, which uses a beefier CPLD to offer 1440p, then you have the 64HD, which uses a Spartan FPGA for up to 720p, the PixelFX N64Digital, a solid option that does up to 1200p, you even have a cheap bang for buck option with a Hispeedido FPGA from Aliexpress that does 720p, you also have the PixelFX Retro GEM HDMI only solution, all of these are drop in FPGA replacements for the RCP/RAMDAC.
So you can see all that 15-20 fps goodness upscaled to 4k.
did you watch the video??
@@USNEM did you watch they part where they were dubious about it working like they said? VRR doesn’t work at 15 fps.
Only for the games that are limited to those framerates. Lots of games have an uncapped framerate so those can run at 60fps or possibly higher
@apferrando in an interview, it says you can overclock the system and it'll get rid of frame rate issues.
Whh cant they just ovwrclock it out of the box and sell it. Customer shouldn't be bothered with this @@wodensthrone5215
Why not even a single image or video of games running at 4k?
Not for me I have an 8k PC but still cool.
So, since the Analogue 3D is an FPGA, does that mean you can load other cores onto it? My assumption would be yes, but it's not mentioned anywhere on the site.
Not officially. Analogue will never support it, so if anything like that is possible it will have to be done by the community.
@@Moshugaani Really? I thought the whole point of an FPGA was that it was reprogrammable. Or are they artificially limiting that to only updates of their N64 core?
@@SolarMechanic I was somewhat wrong on my earlier comment. While it's true that Analogue will never officially _offer_ other cores for their consoles, they did make it easy for the community to load their own cores onto the Analogue Pocket via the AnalogueOS. As of firmware version V1.1 it's been very easy to load your own cores onto it. So maybe that's how it'll be with the 3D as well?
However on the older Analogue consoles such as the Super NT there is very little change of getting access to the chip or even loading your own custom firmware.
Paying $100-$200 per used game cartridge probably isn't going to appeal to most of us who don't already own a N64 collection. It'll probably have the effect of making N64 games even more expensive. :(
At least the MisterFPGA has pretty decent N64 compatibility, despite development on that core coming to a halt this year. Most of the games I'd want to play are already playable or completable on it -- though emulation on PC or mobile remains the better alternative.
N64 games aren't that expensive anymore with a few exceptions. The average price I've seen is between $15 and $50 depending on the title. I doubt the existence of this product will make prices go up because this is such a niche device and the people buying it most likely already have large collections. Prices of a lot of retro Nintendo games have come down because of the Nintendo Switch classic catalogue. Honestly most people don't want to deal with old tech hardware including original carts outside of enthusiasts.
$250 for an N64 in 2024? Scalpers you can have this one.
I should have just kept my old n64
I bought someone else's on eBay, so I've got one again. I recommend that.
Saturn next?
Oh yeah! Give us a dreamcast like that!
SuperSega team: Write that down! Write that down!
I don't understand the point of these things. I get that hardware emulation is superior but if you're not going to play on original hardware on a CRT why not just use free software emulation?
Because this was designed to play on modern 4k tv's at a hardware level. Not everyone just has CRT's lying around and they're becoming very expensive to buy these days. This system will also have features similar to their other products that will let you use filters, save states, rewind time, etc. As for the emulation you talked about the N64 is actually notoriously difficult to properly emulate through software alone. There are audio, visual glitches and inconsistencies in emulators for this system. I'm not sure why because it's above my head but I find it interesting because as far as I know the PS1 does not have this problem. The PS1 emulation scene is actually quite good.
I think inbuilt toggable CRT shaders should come with these as standard.
@@shepardcommander9960 I understand that CRTs are a pain in the ass, I just meant if you're going to emulate, why not software? I didn't know N64 software emulation was still in a rough spot tbh, thought it would be perfect by now so fair enough.
I'll probably just stick with the original N64 and call it a day.
@@Gr00tthis guy actually has no clue what he's talking about, N64 software emulation has been in an excellent state since the release of ParaLLEl plug-ins. These plug-ins allow for low level emulation on modern GPU's, and are incredibly accurate.
This doesn't even begin to cover the still-maturing recompilation tool, which allows N64 games to be recompiled for PC in seconds. It has its limits, and each game needs to be recompiled individually, but within the next year or two, many N64 games will be available to play natively on PC, no emulation required.
So no, N64 is not "still in a rough spot".
PS2 hopefully next 🤞🤞
I hope so
6th gen isn't going to happen, at least not within the next decade. PS2, Gamecube, and OGXBOX are off the table. There has been murmurings of Dreamcast, which may see an analogue release, but that's about it
Nothing that a computer or phone emulator couldn't do for you already.
10:28 we used to run burner disks on DC. Dunno what the issue with reading disks might be.
The idea is to play original dreamcast disc which are based off the GD-ROM format . They are talking about that .there be no point for a dreamcast analogue console if it only read burned disc , that's not why people buy these consoles . They wanna play thier original games on modern hardware
Nintendo should really remaster or remake more N64 games rather than GC.
Those games are amazing but really could benefit from improved frame rates & modern controls (if necessary). GC games already ran well, and like with Paper Mario TTYD, there's a chance Nintendo could actually make them run *WORSE* than the GC original!
I'd rather have HD 60 fps N64 games than prettied up, 30 fps GC games.
do you think they will allow other system cores on it? or exclusively n64?
Is it going to be available in the uk?
you must be not very smart...
DREAMCAST 😍
I just don't know what I'm expecting if i bought one and i come from the og nintendo generation can someone please explain whats the hyped of this console.
I can't wait for mine, I'm sick of cheaper (but still not cheap) scalers, and I refuse to buy a retrotink.
This is as was said here a perfect out of the box system and beside their FOMO crap the company seems fine and frankly they can sell 100 more varients but why would I care, I have one ordered already and have the maturity to not collect devices because of colors. As long as it works as advertised with my existing game and controller collection I will be set for years to come playing these classics in 4k.
Cant wait for it to sell out in 5 min.
Also the prices for anything electronic these days are amazing 👌
And yes i am so envious!
They sold out 5 days ago lol
@@wamba2097 haha well there you go 😅
No, they didn’t. They ran out of preorder slots for the white one. The black one is still available today (Oct 26, 2024)
That's pretty interesting.
Is Dreamcast/NAOMI borderline for an affordable FPGA?
I don't know for certain but it feels like an FPGA that would be capable of doing Dreamcast would be way too expensive for a consumer device. I'm curious though!
Site says it'll be shipped in Q1 2025.
If I can pay ocarina of time in a stable 30fps thane my money,…..
Meh, Mister FPGA already does this, overclocking included
I swear the laziness of gamers blows my mind. The fact they'll spend hundreds of dollars to do what any emulator can do with a very small amount of effort is crazy.
I'm trying to figure out why they haven't been sued and shut down by Nintendo. We all know how Nintendo salivates at the thought of suing people into oblivion anytime something cool or creative is made or released that feature even a hint of their logo.
Nintendo has no grounds as this company isn't stealing content via software emulation or roms. They just built a better machine that's capable of running official N64 cartridges.
No copyright infringement involved. The reason why the emulators get shut down is because they use some part of nintendo's proprietary code.
Probably a few things. They're based out of Hong Kong. The 20 year patent may have expired so it is possible to reverse engineers the hardware as long as the FPGA code is clean. Which Kevtris, the lead engineer, was one of the early console to FPGA devs. The design, while it harkens back to N64, Analogue is very careful not to use Nintendo trademarks or Nintendo developed games in their marketing materials. That's why Analogue 3d is embossed on the console, not N64 and the games are an assortment of 3rd party games.
The one thing Nintendo could ding them for is the jailbreaks and loading ROMs directly from the console. Though since it doesn't come with ROMS and the jailbreaks, while developed internally, are released as a secondary feature not related to Analogue, there's not much Nintendo can do from a legal standpoint. It's just a high quality clone console versus a rom cart or modchip for their latest systems.
@@justinreschke3642 You don't know what you're talking about. Emulators don't contain proprietary code, it's all reverse-engineered code. Emulators get shut down because its creators don't have millions to take this to courts so Nintendo's legal intimidation tactics work.
@@smittyvanjagermanjenson182 so would I be able to use everdrive n64 on this ? that way I can play all my games on this in 4k ?
Winback, baby!
Does the everdrive work with this?
It should, since the other Everdrives work on other Analogue consoles as well!
Dreamcast is all well and good, but where is the ps1 analog console. Was the more popular console, do you think it using CDs something analog haven't done yet is the reason to skip it?
Excited for a PS2, when that finally comes around 10 years from now
Bruh your either on a computer or a phone, do yourself a service and grab an emulator.
@@DarkmoonWinter Nowhere near the same thing as real hardware PS2, the PS2 is an analogue bare-metal console, which not only has 0ms latency video via it's CRT Controller (PCRTC) chipset which literally races the beam on a CRT, it has zero ms input response, and getting accurate RGB analogue video from an emulator is not a simple task, and even if you do, you will have a minimum of 35-40 ms latency, and that's on a good high-end Ryzen based PC (which makes many game impossible to play via soft PS2 emulation, like Space Channel Number 5 for instance), even DynaRes is far from bare-metal performance with accurate audio and perfect input fidelity like you get with real hardware, only FPGA will ever be able to achieve that, the same is true for all bare-metal analogue systems, which run right through to the 360/PS3, which whilst did have some OS overheads, much less for the PS3's very minimal crossbar UI based OS and the OG Blades OS for the 360, the 360 had much higher latency down the line due to poorly optimized and much heavier kernel/OS overheads from the so called updated OS, both consoles still had analogue formats with analogue RAMDAC's, worked best at EDTV resolutions in analogue mode, the digital outputs not only added latency, it significantly reduced frame-rates due to running at 720/1080p, the 360/PS3 were much better consoles and at their respective cores 480/576p 60Hz analogue systems that ran @ sub 3-4ms latency, which again only FPGA will be able to replicate, unless someone ever creates some kind of superfast translation layer for a RISC platform or something along those lines that uses DynaRes or similar.
Beyond that generation though, the best you can really hope for or need for that matter is a translation layer, much like is being done now with Xbox One, which enables incredibly fast Xbox One performance in a Windows environment, kind of how Proton for Steam OS works, which will also potentially be a great way to emulate Xbox One going forward, though that may cause some extra latency, a translation layer on a translation layer, but it could be streamlines somehow, past the 360?PS3/Wii/DS/3DS, FPGA will not be needed, as consoles were purely digital based with heavy set OS overheads, so were far from bare-metal, making FPGA redundant for those systems. A more interesting prospect then, might be porting games from those higher latency console systems to a bare-metal FPGA system, so your favourite PS4 games might one day be enjoyed with 0ms latency, don't get too excited though, that would be 25-30+ years away, and they mighten be emulated on a low latency RISC based platform by then.
I doubt they'll be able to. Sony will still be selling tons of PS2 games on their digital shops, or still making a lot of new games off existing PS2 IPs in general. There's no way Sony wouldn't slap them with a cease and desist.
Very cool, but at 250 for me personally not interested in paying that much to replay old games.
What will be the perfect price?
If they add OpenFPGA and cartridge adapter support, this would be the best retro console ever made. 🤞
#6 of the A3 footnotes states no openFPGA. It is possible Analogue could release their own cores like they did with the NT Mini/Noir but it is highly unlikely at the price point. Or they could release a series of cart adapters for older systems but again, that's also unlikely because they would've included that information in the marketing. My guess is it'll play N64 games at 4k and maybe ROMs with a jailbreak.
Why not 8k or 16 these games are very old shouldn’t be hard to do that
Yea I’m not this big of a nerd
Sounds cool on paper, but I'm shocked that people are preordering this without seeing any videos, gameplay, or third-party testing to verify the claims made about this product.
The big three companies (Nintendo, Sony, & Microsoft) going forward should include FPGA hardware on their modern consoles for arguably better backwards compatibility. We all know they won't because the price, regardless if it's not relatively expensive, they don't care about their past, and the number one reason why is they "don't make enough money" from older titles. So why waste time/ money on the minority of the target audience.
It would be amazing if Nintendo did an official "all-in-one" FPGA console that would run all of their retro games. It could have cartridge slot with adapters to run original cartridges and they could also sell ROMs via internal eShop.
If they do a PS1 or PS2 it’d been an instant hit as those game catalogs are so much better than what N64 and arguably even SNES had
I'd be in immediately for a PS1 from Analogue. Parasite Eve, first game.
Regarding FPGA, sure PS2 would likely be too difficult at the moment, but given how tech increases, in a few years time it will be achievable. Go back 5 years and you would have struggled to do N64.
I don't know that they'll even be able to. Sony will still be selling tons of PS2 games on their digital shops, or still making a lot of new games off existing PS2 IPs in general. There's no way Sony wouldn't slap them with a cease and desist.
@@TooBokoo it’s not piracy though. They would simply be producing an FPGA device which can hardware emulate a PS2. There’s nothing Sony can do about it (same as Nintendo can’t) as long as Analogue don’t use their name (which is a why the Analogue 3D isn’t called the N64 etc.).
TOO EXPENSIVE
If you own a Polymega, there is no reason to get this. I purchased the Analogue Duo.. Very disappointing PC Engine kit. While the Polymega does not play all of my PC Engine and PC Engine CD games. It plays nearly all of them perfectly (of which I own about 150 games.. 3 of which do not run or do not run perfectly.).. I love the CRT filter the Polymega offers as well. Furthermore playing Perfect Dark on the Polymega is very nice..
This will out sell pro😂😂😂😂
How much!!!?? WITHOUT a controller??, ffs. Just buy a series s and use emulation...
Kind of weird they skipped PS1.
Never know they may do a FPGA PS1 later :)
Hope they make a CD add-on that unlocks a PS1 and Saturn, thus making this the aptly-named “3D” core of a suite of consoles.
its not the n64 though
One thing that might affect a certain percentage of hard core collectors is no expansion slot on the bottom for the 64DD. Kind of weird to include all of these features, including the expansion pack, but leave out 64DD support as well as no DAC support. Though I guess DAC support is more understandable considering it's been long in development for the Pocket and isn't available for the Duo yet. So there's still reasons to keep around an original N64 with an HDMI mod if someone wants carts, 64DD support and analog video out.
64DD is still possible if adapted to the cartridge slot but then you might as well be using a flash cart.
@@emmettturner9452 Yes, I understand and it's possible Analogue might support it through a jailbreak as well. Though if the A3d is being sold to collectors, an Everdrive isn't going to cut it for some.
Why would they support something that virtually no one had? That would be a waste of resources and just add to the cost. The 64DD was a failure.
@@targetrender9529There is sort of this odd mentality that obscurity means, "why should I care?" That's true with DAC support and CRT support as well. There's lots of reasons why. Everything from preservation, to matching original peripherals which aren't possible in software emulation, to the same reason people would want carts in this day and again. Of those 15k who purchased a 64DD, maybe some are looking for a way to play them on a modern televisions and would purchase an A3d. There's also a claim of playing 100% of N64 library. Which may be true but should include a footnote that doesn't include the 64DD library.
It means there's an additional reason, beyond analog video out, to hold on to original hardware. Think that's important to remember with Analogue's "reimagining," of the hardware.
Strangely, the Warrior 64 doesn’t fit my backup devices that use the EXT port on the bottom or the ones that fit in the cartridge slot. Heck, it doesn’t even fit the DX256, which just slots in the top with an original game and provides 255 extra EEPROM save slots. The Analogue 3D looks like it might fit a DX256 or V64jr but obviously not full Doctor V64 with CD-ROM.
Point is, the Warrior 64 shell should’ve just walled off the EXT port if they weren’t going to fit on top of 64DD, V64, CD64, etc and perhaps this is why Analogue 3D left it out entirely.
I give a thumbs up for any investments made on retro hardware, for it can be a steep investment with little return.
Are you guys actually going to do game analysis, or are you now only just about talking talking talking?