The SEGA Genesis gets a premium throwback console in the form of the Mega Sg

WildDog · Oct 18, 2018

smf said:
.

What this does have is real controller ports which have zero latency and there is no way of doing that with a PC

In what universe? If you have a wired controller, with a 1ms monitor and use retroarch with the read ahead option... You will have even less latency than the real hardware or this analogue machines....

smf · Oct 18, 2018

WildDog said:
In what universe? If you have a wired controller, with a 1ms monitor and use retroarch with the read ahead option... You will have even less latency than the real hardware or this analogue machines....

Wired controllers still have latency. Software emulators have to run ahead of the display output, which adds latency.

Read ahead in retroarch targets internal game latency, but that was designed to be in there. You're cheating at the game by using it & it can cause graphic artifacts if you set it to read ahead more than the game tries to slow you down. Having to configure it per game is pretty annoying.

WildDog · Oct 18, 2018

smf said:
Wired controllers still have latency. Software emulators have to run ahead of the display output, which adds latency.

Read ahead in retroarch targets internal game latency, but that was designed to be in there. You're cheating at the game by using it & it can cause graphic artifacts if you set it to read ahead more than the game tries to slow you down. Having to configure it per game is pretty annoying.

Of course they have latency, everything have latency,but under certain # we cannot see it. Even if you solder the controller to the board bypassing, it will still have some degree of latency.... but with a wired controller it is practical non existant.
By using run ahead you are not cheating, you are just getting closer to the latency it should have.

smf · Oct 18, 2018

WildDog said:
you are just getting closer to the latency it should have.

No, it purely undoes the latency the game should have. If the game has no latency then using read ahead will cause graphic glitches.

If the game has latency then it trades that for the latency the emulator has, if the game has no latency then you're stuffed.

It's not even a new idea, there were emulators doing something similar years ago. They looked ahead at the graphics that were being generated for the next frame, the only difference is that it was game specific.

the_randomizer · Oct 18, 2018

Why can't people just let others use whatever the hell they want? If they want to use RetroArch, fine, and if they want to use this, fine, who cares?

WildDog · Oct 19, 2018

smf said:
No, it purely undoes the latency the game should have. If the game has no latency then using read ahead will cause graphic glitches.

If the game has latency then it trades that for the latency the emulator has, if the game has no latency then you're stuffed.

It's not even a new idea, there were emulators doing something similar years ago. They looked ahead at the graphics that were being generated for the next frame, the only difference is that it was game specific.

You cannot remove latency, it is impossible, you will always get latency.... it will only be lowered to apoint that is too low for your brain to see it. Think about a bullet, after you fire the gun you will see the hole in the target... The bullet didn't instant trasmit to the target. It did travel to the target, but it was faster than you can see and your brain can process.. So from your point of view, it was instantly, when it was not. Here is the same, you will always latency.
Now we add the latency of a modern display (unless you are using an OLED), you can get an experience similar to the one you would get using the real hardware.

the_randomizer said:
Why can't people just let others use whatever the hell they want? If they want to use RetroArch, fine, and if they want to use this, fine, who cares?

I think you are taking it over the top, i don't see anyone saying "HEY DON'T BUY IT OR ELSE!!!" people can play games in whatever they want or buy whatever they want with their money....
But people can point their points of view, even more when some company is are tryng to sell an expensive FPGA console as the "THE ULTIMATE!!!!! RETRO CONSOLE, FOR TE ULTIMATE ACCURACY!!".....

Hell people did complaing that Nintendo did not give some cheap as cellphone charger (who everyone already has) with their mini consoles.... but everyone seems to be OK, with Analogue, charging 200 dollars for a fpga consoles that doesn't EVEN CAME WITH A GAMEPAD.

duwen · Oct 19, 2018

WildDog said:
Hell people did complaing that Nintendo did not give some cheap as cellphone charger (who everyone already has) with their mini consoles.... but everyone seems to be OK, with Analogue, charging 200 dollars for a fpga consoles that doesn't EVEN CAME WITH A GAMEPAD.

Much like Nintendo's charger presumptions (although their lack of inclusion of a charger with the N3DS is far more contentious than them not being included with the mini's), I think Analog believe that anyone buying this will already own game cartridges and, by extension, also own controllers for the original system - so, only a minority of people that would buy this would actually require a new controller, and that isn't worth inflating the price any higher than it already is.

smf · Oct 19, 2018

WildDog said:
You cannot remove latency, it is impossible, you will always get latency.... it will only be lowered to apoint that is too low for your brain to see it. Think about a bullet, after you fire the gun you will see the hole in the target... The bullet didn't instant trasmit to the target. It did travel to the target, but it was faster than you can see and your brain can process.. So from your point of view, it was instantly, when it was not. Here is the same, you will always latency.
Now we add the latency of a modern display (unless you are using an OLED), you can get an experience similar to the one you would get using the real hardware.

I'm not talking about removing latency that exists because of the speed of light.

The base line latency is if you had a genesis game running in a loop that is constantly reading the joystick ports and changes the screen so that the next pixel that is drawn is affected by the inputs. If you enabled read ahead in retroarch in such a test case then it would display incorrect graphics. Your only option would be a real genesis or the mega sg.

Latency in modern screens is mostly down to the display processor, rather than the response time. Some tv's have a game mode which disables alot of the processing (stuff like deinterlacing effects) & allows the image to be displayed sooner. Getting a tv that doesn't introduce it's own latency is obviously important. The advantage of the mega sg over a real genesis is that the video output is already upscaled and doesn't have to go through the analogue path.

If you like read ahead then good for you, but it's not a 100% solution for everything and you shouldn't pretend it is.

Pickle_Rick · Oct 22, 2018

Minox said:
Higan should be more accurate as far as emulation goes, but the point it proves is that software emulation can be more accurate than hardware emulation with the key word being can. Often though the software emulation used in these mini consoles are made to be just good enough for most people to not care.

You'd be surprised. Not really. Also, the more accurate you get, the more cpu power you need. Full accuracy emulation Higan needs an i9 to avoid any stutter.

WildDog · Oct 22, 2018

Pickle_Rick said:
You'd be surprised. Not really. Also, the more accurate you get, the more cpu power you need. Full accuracy emulation Higan needs an i9 to avoid any stutter.

Oh digital foundry, yes then it's true, you need an I9 to avoid stutter on Bsnes (higan).. lol..
No, you don't need an I9 to run Bsnes at "full accuracy" even with an old dog like the AMD Fx 8350 black edition (a 2012 CPU) you can run bsnes without stutter.... With something "older" than I9, like the I7 8700, bsnes becomes a joke.
If some people think that a BSNES, needs space age cpus to run it without issues... i wonder what they will think of PCem???

This is the type of things, that make some people to dislike products like the SuperNT... that to promote their stuff some of their fanboys need to tell misinformation and people then starts to spread it, like IT'S THE TRUTH!!!.
You don't need a SuperNT, to get an uber accuracte experience. Also you don't need an space age computer to run bsnes at full capacity..
You like the looks of SuperNT? Then buy one and be happy
You like the idea to have a console that tries to replicates the original hardware? Then buy one these consoles from Analogue and be happy
But there is no need to spread inaccurate information about other stuff.

FateForWindows · Oct 22, 2018

Pickle_Rick said:
Full accuracy emulation Higan needs an i9 to avoid any stutter.

Then why can I play Star Fox 2 on my i7-4710MQ (pretty sure that's the model my PC has) without any drops at all?

Pickle_Rick · Oct 22, 2018

WildDog said:
Oh digital foundry, yes then it's true, you need an I9 to avoid stutter on Bsnes (higan).. lol..
No, you don't need an I9 to run Bsnes at "full accuracy" even with an old dog like the AMD Fx 8350 black edition (a 2012 CPU) you can run bsnes without stutter.... With something "older" than I9, like the I7 8700, bsnes becomes a joke.
If some people think that a BSNES, needs space age cpus to run it without issues... i wonder what they will think of PCem???

This is the type of things, that make some people to dislike products like the SuperNT... that to promote their stuff some of their fanboys need to tell misinformation and people then starts to spread it, like IT'S THE TRUTH!!!.
You don't need a SuperNT, to get an uber accuracte experience. Also you don't need an space age computer to run bsnes at full capacity..
You like the looks of SuperNT? Then buy one and be happy
You like the idea to have a console that tries to replicates the original hardware? Then buy one these consoles from Analogue and be happy
But there is no need to spread inaccurate information about other stuff.

FateForWindows said:
Then why can I play Star Fox 2 on my i7-4710MQ (pretty sure that's the model my PC has) without any drops at all?

I said ANY stutter. Most games will run fine with lower hardware. But still, you need expensive high end cpus for full accuracy (I'm including the i7s as well).

WildDog · Oct 23, 2018

Pickle_Rick said:
I said ANY stutter. Most games will run fine with lower hardware. But still, you need expensive high end cpus for full accuracy (I'm including the i7s as well).

Did you even try bsnes???, look the I7 he has is from 2014... It's far from being a high end cpu.. It's an old dog, like the Amd i told you.
No stutter at all with older cpus.... in fact higan has a faq about the games running too fast and how to fix it.
Bsnes doesn't need an space age CPU, what Bsnes need is a better CPU than the average SNES emulator and remember that some snes emulators even run on a 486 cpu running DOS....

Also everytime someone says "Full accuracy" reminds me of when people used to make creepypastas using "hyper realistic blood!"

BORTZ · Oct 23, 2018

Foxi4 said:
You don't seem to be familiar with what an FPGA (field-programmable gate array) is. It's an integrated circuit which uses a collection of gates that you can program to be open or closed. By doing so you can recreate physical circuits with software. It's a chip that emulates another chip, which makes it hardware emulation. This is different from software emulation which recompiles or interprets code in order to run it on a different machine. Still, it's emulation, just a different approach.

I was not either, so thank you

Foxi4 · Oct 23, 2018

BORTZ said:
I was not either, so thank you

Don't get me wrong, it's a good way to get your hands on a chip that's out of production and re-creating it wouldn't be financially viable or it would breach a zillion patents, but it's not perfect - people should know this. You're most welcome.

People forget that sometimes accurate emulation *causes* stutter, case in point, Mega Man X. You might remember the game running flawlessly when you were a kid, but it runs like mud on a real SNES with frequent framerate drops well into molasses territory.

smf · Oct 25, 2018

Foxi4 said:
This is different from software emulation which recompiles or interprets code in order to run it on a different machine. Still, it's emulation, just a different approach.

I don't see why you can't describe the fpga also as interpreting.

The main difference between an fpga and a cpu is the fpga dedicates logic gates to particular tasks activated by the fuse map, while the logic gates in a cpu are multiplexed and activated by feeding opcodes in.

Some people make out that an fpga has real circuits downloaded into it, but in reality you just have a bunch of pre-made circuits which you then can activate and link together. Even if you have the schematic for a chip then you still have to sit down and write code to load into the fpga to emulate the original chip.

the_randomizer · Oct 25, 2018

Why are people crapping on FPGA clone systems? It feels a helluva lot more authentic than using a software emulator. Heaven forbid it's not 100% super cycle-accurate to Higan Accuracy, which runs like shit on my Core i7 4770, so yeah, not worth my time.

FateForWindows · Oct 26, 2018

Oh, should've mentioned this but the Mega Sg also doesn't contain a YM2612 like they originally advertised. It's emulated through the FPGA as well, which they claim brings the exact same experience as the original hardware, which also isn't true as it lacks the low pass filtering the Genesis used which is pretty much one of the most important parts of the sound hardware besides the YM2612 and PSG themselves. The lack of filtering is a huge disappointment in my opinion and it makes the sound sound about as good as an emulator.

Fun fact: from the non-HD Graphics labeled model 1s without the expansion port to the early model 2s, the audio amps and filtering were terrible leading to the infamously bad sound those models have.

Foxi4 · Oct 26, 2018

smf said:
I don't see why you can't describe the fpga also as interpreting.

The main difference between an fpga and a cpu is the fpga dedicates logic gates to particular tasks activated by the fuse map, while the logic gates in a cpu are multiplexed and activated by feeding opcodes in.

Some people make out that an fpga has real circuits downloaded into it, but in reality you just have a bunch of pre-made circuits which you then can activate and link together. Even if you have the schematic for a chip then you still have to sit down and write code to load into the fpga to emulate the original chip.

Because it's not the same thing, that's why. One approach interprets the game code (interpretation) or adapts it (dynamic recompilation, or dynarec) to run on hardware that it isn't supposed to run on, the other adapts the hardware, or at least the environment, so that the code doesn't know any better. In reality it's usually a combination of both, but the point stands. It's like the difference between going to the tailor to get your suit adjusted to your size versus going on a diet to fit your old suit again - the end result is the same, you're wearing a suit, but you got there in one of those two distinct ways.

smf · Oct 26, 2018

Foxi4 said:
Because it's not the same thing, that's why. One approach interprets the game code (interpretation) or adapts it (dynamic recompilation, or dynarec) to run on hardware that it isn't supposed to run on, the other adapts the hardware, or at least the environment, so that the code doesn't know any better.

A cpu and an fpga are both hardware that a genesis game isn't supposed to run on. No matter whether you use a cpu or fpga, the goal of both is to make it so the original code doesn't know any better.

An interpreter fetches and decodes each instruction every time they are executed.

A drc fetches and decodes instructions and caches the results in a way the hardware can run natively.

So if your fpga supported changing the fuse map at run time, you could make an fpga drc. Otherwise it's an interpreter.

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