Everdrive N8 or real cartridges/disks?

[atheistgod1999]

I'm using an Everdrive N8 on my AV Famicom and I haven't had any problems with the games so far. I hear it uses emulation, though, but I thought the FPGA shapeshifted itself into the original cartridge circuitry. Is that not how it works? If it uses emulation, I'm just gonna buy the original cartridges.

[eightbitminiboss]

FPGAs are programmed to emulate hardware. An Everdrive is programmed to act like a NES/Famicom cartridge and your AV Famicom can't tell the difference.

It's not technically emulation in the way I think you're thinking. Your Famicom is acting as a Famicom should, it's interpreting the data it's receiving from the Everdrive as if it is an actual cartridge.

[atheistgod1999]

FPGAs are programmed to emulate hardware. An Everdrive is programmed to act like a NES/Famicom cartridge and your AV Famicom can't tell the difference.

It's not technically emulation in the way I think you're thinking. Your Famicom is acting as a Famicom should, it's interpreting the data it's receiving from the Everdrive as if it is an actual cartridge.

I don't get it. If I can't tell the difference between an FC Twin and a real SNES or NES (even though I would in reality), would that "technically" not be emulation either? Please elaborate.

[eightbitminiboss]

FPGAs are programmed to emulate hardware. An Everdrive is programmed to act like a NES/Famicom cartridge and your AV Famicom can't tell the difference.

It's not technically emulation in the way I think you're thinking. Your Famicom is acting as a Famicom should, it's interpreting the data it's receiving from the Everdrive as if it is an actual cartridge.

I don't get it. If I can't tell the difference between an FC Twin and a real SNES or NES (even though I would in reality), would that "technically" not be emulation either? Please elaborate.

I didn't mean it that way. I'm assuming you're equating software emulation (i.e. running SNES9x on a PC) with hardware emulation. FC Twin and other Famiclones use custom made chips to copy or simulate what an NES does.

[atheistgod1999]

FPGAs are programmed to emulate hardware. An Everdrive is programmed to act like a NES/Famicom cartridge and your AV Famicom can't tell the difference.

It's not technically emulation in the way I think you're thinking. Your Famicom is acting as a Famicom should, it's interpreting the data it's receiving from the Everdrive as if it is an actual cartridge.

I don't get it. If I can't tell the difference between an FC Twin and a real SNES or NES (even though I would in reality), would that "technically" not be emulation either? Please elaborate.

I didn't mean it that way. I'm assuming you're equating software emulation (i.e. running SNES9x on a PC) with hardware emulation. FC Twin and other Famiclones use custom made chips to copy or simulate what an NES does.

I know that. I was asking if the everdrive just simulated what the real cartridge would do or if it actually created the circuits within its FPGA.

[Guspaz]

Those two things are the same thing...? It's a flashcart, anyhow, how it delivers the bits to the NES is kind of irrelevant...

[Unseen]

Is it already emulation, if the circuit implemented in the FPGA is different due to architectural constraints of the FPGA, but provides the same behaviour as the original one?

[atheistgod1999]

Is it already emulation, if the circuit implemented in the FPGA is different due to architectural constraints of the FPGA, but provides the same behaviour as the original one?

Yes? I thought the definition of emulation is different hardware pretending to be something else.

[BuckoA51]

Very unlikely there's any differences between running the game on the Everdrive and running the original cartridge though.

[kamiboy]

That a flash cart is not a genuine famicom/NES cart goes without saying. But can YOU tell any difference? If you cannot then worrying about it is just letting your OCD getting the better of you. With current price trends that is going to be a very expensive acquiescence.

[SGGG2]

Original cartridges are neat and all (and I still have a few) but all they do is sit on a shelf until you die.

[Unseen]

Yes? I thought the definition of emulation is different hardware pretending to be something else.

This of course begs the question if the SNES Mini is also emulation. Or at which board revision the Playstation ceased to be a real Playstation and became an emulated one (e.g. with the SGRAM to SDRAM switch?).

Or let's do a thought experiment: A cartridge-based game is released that contains a PCB with two ROM chips, because at release time it is not cost-effective to use a single larger ROM instead. It proves to be a popular title and during a later run, it is produced with a single-ROM PCB because the production costs for the larger chip has lowered enough to make it the cheaper option. Is it emulation? (I can't name any specific titles, but I would be very surprised if there are no examples of this)

[darcagn]

Most NES games have mapper chips in them. The Everdrive N8 emulates these mapper chips on its FPGA. This can cause slightly different behavior in VERY few titles, so yes, to a degree it is emulation. None of the internal NES hardware is emulated, but the cartridge hardware is emulated.

The number of games with bugs/issues is so tiny that I would not worry about it. However, where I think the Everdrive N8 falls short is its emulation of expansion audio. The FDS audio emulation is way off, so I'd suggest using an original FDS RAM cart (where the audio is generated) with an FDSStick connected to it instead of an actual diskette drive. Konami VRC6 (Akumajou Densetsu aka Castlevania III) expansion audio sounds fine to me so I run that on the Everdrive. Sunsoft 5B isn't properly emulated so I made a repro of Gimmick! to play on my NES. And I made my own English translation copy of Lagrange Point since the Konami VRC7 audio isn't supported.

But really besides those expansion audio issues I see no reason to not use an Everdrive N8.