Analogue 3D - new N64 console

[cfx]

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[bigbadboaz]

You know, as obvious as the "why don't videogamers actually want to play the gamessss...?" point would seem to be, this is a technical hobby. What locked it in for me as a kid was the fascination with the technology, the fact that I knew these electronic images onscreen weren't real, yet I could control them in real time just like they were. Sure, the games were fun, but the magic of the hardware behind it was what elevated them as my favorite pursuit.

So it makes sense why our discussion zones have hardware subsets, and why the people in them might focus on the machinery even to the "detriment" of the games themselves. It's a vital aspect of the hobby within the hobby, and as with any other you've got certain people who gravitate towards different areas.

I'll always love the games but I can certainly while away hours just thinking about what platform X does better than platform Y, or how whatever new implementation coming along might best the last one.

[tongshadow]

But when I go to a freaking hardware forum, and particularly one with so many experts as this one

You'd be surprised by how many are actually pseudo-experts in this place.

[ZellSF]

Every console ends being an emulation package is what I'm saying. Nothing to do with pcbs. You can emulate in 15000 ways but every other post is about cores, how a console can play roms or be hacked.

It's been going on for years I feel folk are more interested in jail breaking than playing games.

They jail break to have more time to play games. They go with the easy emulation options rather than spending time acquiring hardware and fixing it to have more time to play games.

[Bassa-Bassa]

I'm the first telling friends not to forget about playing games instead of toying with hardware, but when I go to a freaking hardware forum, and particularly one with so many experts as this one, the last I expect is finding people talking about how many times they beat Mario 64.

This is defintely not true for you, but there are a number of the most prolific posters in this hardware subforum who never post anything, ever, on the other parts of this website. To be clear, I am certainly not referring to Marqs, Mike Chi (who doesn't appear to post here anymore either), or any of the other people who create useful hardware for our use.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it's also easy to come to the conclusion that those particular posters aren't really interested in playing games. At least it's the conclusion I have about some of the more aggressive and argumentative ones here and I'm sure you know who I'm referring to. I may be wrong, but I really doubt it. I don't care if they play games or not, but their attitudes and posting style in this subforum make reading it a very unpleasant experience. I left this place for years becuase of a couple that are fortunately no longer here.

So you people just needed an excuse to express yourselves about this particular matter. What I still fail to see is how this thread was providing it.

[cfx]

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[Bassa-Bassa]

Oh, don't get me wrong. I welcome any possible explanation, it's just I find it wouldn't really justify neorichieb1971's complaint.

[neorichieb1971]

There were many comparisons to the mister in this thread.

There are so many consoles, raspberry pi's and pcs that can play emulation i was wondering when that subset of gamers were going to get bored of it.

I get emulation feeds on Facebook (mostly selling), YouTube, here at shmups. Are you guys not drowning in options yet?

[Bassa-Bassa]

There are so many consoles, raspberry pi's and pcs that can play emulation i was wondering when that subset of gamers were going to get bored of it.

Don't blame the users then, blame Analogue, that is putting on the market yet another emulation device (which is what their new console is no matter if it can be jail broken or not)?

I'll ask again - what did you expect the people here were discussing at this point?

[ZellSF]

There were many comparisons to the mister in this thread.

There are so many consoles, raspberry pi's and pcs that can play emulation i was wondering when that subset of gamers were going to get bored of it.

I get emulation feeds on Facebook (mostly selling), YouTube, here at shmups. Are you guys not drowning in options yet?

Not everyone suffers from decision paralysis all the time. For a lot of people options are a good thing.

[Josh128]

Im lost, my friends-- lets get this thread back on track please.

So this thing will play N64 carts, have HDMI out, wireless bluetooth AND 2.4g (what does this mean, wi-fi??) , 4 authentic N64 controller ports, output in 240p - 4K, and feature CRT mask effects ala RetroTink products. It would be incredible if this thing could actually render at 480p or higher, like N64 emulators have been able to do since the beginning. Absolutely no hint so far that this will be possible though, is that right?

[ZellSF]

2.4g is likely just for 2.4ghz controller support. Probably both for the included controller and maybe pairing with other Analogue 2.4ghz controllers?

Higher resolution rendering, again, if they could do that wouldn't that be up front in the advertising materials?

[DejahThoris]

2.4g (what does this mean, wi-fi??)

Think old cordless home phones.

[fernan1234]

I'd be very happy with 480p render and 480i output for SD CRTs as the Wii did. N64 polygons really benefit from that bump in detail, and at the same time 480i on a CRT is forgiving enough and doesn't make textures look too blurry next to the higher res rendered polygons. It's a great sweet spot.

[Guspaz]

While all wireless controllers use 2.4 GHz spectrum (bluetooth also uses this), Analogue uses the term in the same way that 8bitdo does, which is to say their "2.4g" controllers that use direct 2.4 GHz RF and not bluetooth. It's not a panacea but they have generally demonstrated lower and most notably more stable latency than bluetooth controllers.

[kamiboy]

I wonder how one should interpert the "coming in 2024" message. The Analogue Duo still has a "shipping in 2023" notice on their page, and seeing how close tot he end of the year they are cutting it with that promise, I doubt we are likely to see nor hide or hair of this system for at least a full on year.

At least I expect and hope to have the Duo in my hand before the pre-orders for this one are likely to start. Apropos the 2.4 ghz controllers, it is shame that for the newer systems the 8bitdo controllers do not seem to have a 2.4ghz dongle to use on the OG consoles like there was with the NES. That is a very neat option, to be able to buy new wireless controllers for an old system, with the benefit of the low latency offered by 2.4ghz. Or am I mistaken and there is a way to use the 8bitdo PC Engine controllers on a stock original PC Engine system? I wonder what the story will be with the N64 controller, I suspect many would be interested in buying a modern replacement for their original system.

[bobrocks95]

Apropos the 2.4 ghz controllers, it is shame that for the newer systems the 8bitdo controllers do not seem to have a 2.4ghz dongle to use on the OG consoles like there was with the NES. That is a very neat option, to be able to buy new wireless controllers for an old system, with the benefit of the low latency offered by 2.4ghz. Or am I mistaken and there is a way to use the 8bitdo PC Engine controllers on a stock original PC Engine system?

PC Engine is potentially an outlier. Their SNES and Genesis/MD controllers both had original controller ports. The current 8bitdo PC Engine-styled controller was produced for the PC Engine Mini so it's USB. When the Duo actually launches, maybe they'll add a version that supports original controllers as well?

[bigbadboaz]

They also did not produce "original port" dongles for their new Neo-Geo CD pad. My guess was that for these two systems, the audience is too niche/small for it to be worth it to them to go through production on those. Obviously, for SNES/Genesis etc. there would be a lot more takers for those dongles.

[kamiboy]

Bah, what a shame. Well, this does perchance leave the door open for some enterprising fellows to make and sell these dongles as a third party interloper. Or if not, I guess there is something to be said for sticking with the wired variety, which will never suffer from the dreaded potential of being picked up only to report not having any battery left for a quick session.

I doubt 8bit will be doing any revisions on behalf of the launch of the Duo, since the Analogue console already comes with the 2.4ghz transmitter built in.

[Gara]

Or am I mistaken and there is a way to use the 8bitdo PC Engine controllers on a stock original PC Engine system?

You can do that with the USB-2-PCE.
https://controlleradapter.com/products/usb-2-pce

Spoiler

They also did not produce "original port" dongles for their new Neo-Geo CD pad.

There is also an adapter available that can get that done. I wish 8bitdo would do an official dongle.

https://ko-fi.com/s/b6c3d01043

https://twitter.com/Raph_friend/status/ ... 20826?s=19

[Johnpv]

https://ko-fi.com/s/b6c3d01043

https://twitter.com/Raph_friend/status/ ... 20826?s=19

Ohh I've been looking for something like this! It looked like the undamned one wasn't being made any more. Thanks for the links!

[kamiboy]

Seems many, many limited edition colours is Analogues new sales strategy, at least for their Gameboy-esque product, which, let's be honest, had its own menagerie of colours on offer. Which makes me think, there was one other retro Nintendo system that also was offered in many a colour, making it appealing to collectors... I suppose I am trying to say, that if you are partial to systems in fantastic colours, perhaps abstain from ordering the Analogue 3D once the regular old black version goes up for pre-order.

[andykara2003]

So it been revealed!

Does anyone know whether their ‘4K’ means the 3D graphics are actually up-rezzed to 4K or if it’s just 240p scaled to 4K?

https://www.analogue.co/3d

[Josh128]

The name suggests it will be an era of console support and not just the N64.

The brief description leaves a lot of questions like is the 4k going to be upscaled 240p or sharp high resolution polygons in 4k like emulators?

If its only 4k upscaling then I'm not interested as I've already had the chance to test the Retrotink 4k in person and am looking forward to purchasing one.

Exciting someone to take a stab at it though

Almost certainly upscaled 240p. Emulating GPU hardware to run N64 graphics at higher resolution and textures in FPGA is much less trivial than just emulating the base hardware in FPGA, I would imagine.

[Bassa-Bassa]

Who cares? We're getting immersive scanlines this time, guys.

[Atariboy]

Hopefully it will at least allow an optional bump to 480p. Goes a long ways towards making N64 games look better on today's tv technology.

[neorichieb1971]

Most folk talking about the Analogue 3D are suprised Analogue haven't showcased the unit.

I am surprised that Analogue doesn't do a youtube as many other vendors do to promote their product. Without comparison screenshots its really hard to tell what the unit will produce.

The website has screenshots but they are way too small to get any sort of detail from.

Price is good, unit looks good, features are good. Just no evidence of it running yet.

[spmbx]

How could you possibly be surprised? Giving as little info as possible and having no customer-contact at all is an integral part of their image.
Price is ok until you add the insane shipping they usually charge, and add taxes over the total. 249usd becomes 350eur. Which i suppose according to some will still be "not too bad".

[neorichieb1971]

How could you possibly be surprised? Giving as little info as possible and having no customer-contact at all is an integral part of their image.
Price is ok until you add the insane shipping they usually charge, and add taxes over the total. 249usd becomes 350eur. Which i suppose according to some will still be "not too bad".

Their website is quite stylistic and bold, bright and gleaming. Yet, they stop there. Maybe they prefer the "boutique" look to actually demonstrating anything. Its ok to be surprised you know

Yeah, I think I paid £350 for a Duo last time direct from the site. I think it was $80 shipping and then I needed to pay 20% taxes on top of the whole lot. Which is about another £50-£60. So $249+$80 is about £254 on todays exchange and then you add another £50+ you end up at around £350 to your European door. Its not pretty, but it gets to you quickly and usually packaged well if thats any consolation. Meanwhile, buy something from Ali express and pay pittance on everything and it get it within a week.

For you Americans, that means on todays exchange folk in the UK are paying $454 for this item to their door

[kamiboy]

Shipping and import duties really are the bane of anyone living within the EU. Since post brexit UK was removed from the duty free club the list of places to shop shrank dramatically. Honestly I don't understand what trickery Chinese stores like AliExpress use to circumvent duties and ship things for free when buying for over 10 Euros, but it feels surreal when one is used to getting screwed by every other source.

As for resolution, I very much expect that the A3D will render at 240p for best accuracy, which is what they seem to strive for. My N64 looks all kinds of soft, washed out and terrible, even after being RGB modded and connected to a SONY CRT via SCART.

I think rather than rendering at a higher resolution, the ability to disable or remove that awful blur filtering most games are run through will go the furthest to clean up and enhance the image quality.

Analogues CRT filters on the DUO were actually quite good, event though they were at 1080p, which bodes well for the A3D with its 4K output. Perhaps the A3D will be the system I would actually prefer to play on my OLED TV rather than on via original hardware on a CRT, because the digital 4K rendition actually looks better than the analog 240p counterpart.

I certainly have reservations about how the N64 looks on a good CRT, so I doubt Analogue can make it look worse.