I debated a while when thinking about this OT whether or not we should have an Analogue NT, Super Analogue NT & Retrousb AVS specific topics. I thought for the limited amount of users we have this would be a good place to funnel all the information through. I am hoping this will be a good resource for users trying to figure out if its worth while, which cables we bought and of course if we loaded any of the jailbreak software or not.
So far we have 2 players in the FPGA game.
First things first, what is a FPGA and how is it different than official hardware and how is it different than software emulation
The short answer is FPGAs are designed to emulate the hardware in that the FPGA “becomes” the hardware you program it to be. It is still technically emulation but on the hardware level and it is the most accurate way to play games outside of the original hardware. Some say software emulation is actually more like simulation. Whatever you think the point is FPGA > Software emulation.
Another feature of FPGA consoles is that the consoles actually interact with the carts themselves. They don’t download a rom to the system cache. The hardware interacts with the cartridge just as your original hardware would.
Core: A core is what we would call an emulator. It is the system environment for the console you want to play. The NES core obviously plays nes and famicom games. The Analogue NT Mini supports other 8 bit cores and so far is the only one to do so on this list.
Retrousb AVS:
Basic sub $200 fpga hardware that plays games via hdmi out only in 720 resolution. Does not include a controller. It supports flash carts but not jailbroken firmware. You can’t play roms off a SD card. It has game genie software built in for cheat codes and also has leaderboards if you use your PC to power it via your usb. It also has a scanline feature if you are into that.
Analogue NT Mini
This will set you back $450-500 plus shipping. It can play games over HDMI in 480p, 720p, and 1080p. In 1080p you can set the console to scale 240p to 5x which crops the top and bottom just like your crt would. It also supports Composite, S-video, component and RGB (Composite Sync). It has a SD slot so you can back up your own games and even run games directly off the SD card if you use the jailbroken software that the fpga designer released for free.
Kevtris also loaded his own custom cores for the console so you can google that and play games directly off your SD card. Anyone looking to do that should google jailbroken analogue nt cores. (Not sure if we are going to link to this kind of thing here so I will let you guys figure it out).
Super Analogue NT
Recently Announced. Sub $200 with HDMI only. Comes in 4 colors. Made of plastic and only has HDMI output. Basically a Snes classic that allows you to use carts. Probably will have jailbroken firmware and will support your SD2SNES or Everdrive.
More info on this as it comes.
