Should I sell my Hi-Def NES and NESRGB for Analog Nt Mini?

[keepdreamin]

godslabrat in post 37 was talking about features of the AVS and NT

 

atariboy in post 38 directly replies to what was in post 37 and adds in SD rom loading.

 

then keepdreaming in post 39 says SD rom loading is the main feature.

 

One would assume based on the previous post keepdreaming is referring to either the AVS or NT utilizing SD rom loading as it's best feature?

 

Did I miss something here, is that not what was being expressed?

 

 

 

edit: to make it clear what I was saying.

I added in some bolded, since I know little of the two please educate me on which if any does sd rom loading or do neither?

 

 

THE NT DOES ROM LOADING. This thread is about the NT. The AVS also doesn't come in a billet shell, what did you think I was talking about? Yeesh. Pay attention, bro.

Edited March 11, 2017 by keepdreamin

[icemanxp300]

The SD rom loading is the main feature IMO.

 

On what device are you referring to with this statement.

[keepdreamin]

 

On what device are you referring to with this statement.

 

............................ you just trolling now, or are you legitimately confuddled?

 

 

"

The SD rom loading is the main feature IMO. You've got an awesome essentially lag free rom box burdened with unnecessary NES bits. Lose the cart connectors, billet case, and the NES controller ports and a good chunk of the price. That would make sense "

 

Take a guess. it's also the ONLY one that does rom loading.

[icemanxp300]

I'm not trolling you just fail to comprehend what I said. SD rom loading is emulation. Sorry to burst your bubble.

[keepdreamin]

I'm not trolling you just fail to comprehend what I said. SD rom loading is emulation. Sorry to burst your bubble.

Are you alright,man? You're not on any meds that warn against operating the internet?

 

What bubble? There is no bubble, unless you're blowing them. I referred to it (NT mini in case that isn't clear enough by now) as "a ROM box with essentially no lag". So, yeah that sounds like emulation albeit FPGA based. Where was I implying it wasn't?

[icemanxp300]

Ok I'm sorry I should NOT have quoted your statement an applied it to the entire thread. Not many people here will think a $500 system's best feature is the ability to emulate. My fault totally. Screw that mini for $60 I want to emulate for $500 LOL

 

Other people in this thread stated NOT wanting a classic mini or a PI because it was emulating and that was the main reason to get an NT, then you just came along and said emulating on an NT was the best feature which is where my remark came in.

 

Carry on lol.

[keepdreamin]

 

[kevtris]

Ok I'm sorry I should NOT have quoted your statement an applied it to the entire thread. Not many people here will think a $500 system's best feature is the ability to emulate. My fault totally. Screw that mini for $60 I want to emulate for $500 LOL

 

Other people in this thread stated NOT wanting a classic mini or a PI because it was emulating and that was the main reason to get an NT, then you just came along and said emulating on an NT was the best feature which is where my remark came in.

 

Carry on lol.

 

Pretty sure you're trolling, but I suspect the main reasons are it has zero lag vs. emulators, and it can output analog A/V signals, and it runs close to a dozen cores now, all minimum lag vs. a software emulator solution.

[keepdreamin]

 

Pretty sure you're trolling, but I suspect the main reasons are it has zero lag vs. emulators, and it can output analog A/V signals, and it runs close to a dozen cores now, all minimum lag vs. a software emulator solution.

 

Whenever you get the NT mini-less NT mini sorted out, I'll be down for one. I just want the fridge, and Analogue is selling an entire kitchen remodel.

[icemanxp300]

 

Pretty sure you're trolling

 

No I am not.

[Austin]

 

Pretty sure you're trolling, but I suspect the main reasons are it has zero lag vs. emulators, and it can output analog A/V signals, and it runs close to a dozen cores now, all minimum lag vs. a software emulator solution.

 

Nah, he comes off as trollish, but I think the reality is he's just dense. He has exhibited this behavior in many threads for a long time.

[icemanxp300]

Yes I am dense. I fail to comprehend certain logics at times such as spending $500 on a system and stating your favorite aspect of it is emulation.

[Atariboy]

You don't even know what emulation is, since it has absolutely nothing to do with where the original game code resides.

[icemanxp300]

You don't even know what emulation is, since it has absolutely nothing to do with where the original game code resides.

 

I am fully aware of what emulation is and tossing a rom on a device and playing it is emulation. You guys can argue all you want and say I am dense, trolling, stupid, whatever you want. It will not change the meaning of emulation.

[+eebuckeye]

So you must think that an Everdrive with roms installed are emulation, correct? This is the same thing. It is definitely not the software emulation you would get on a $60 NES clone with bad sounds and other glitches.

[Keatah]

Semantics!

 

FPGA is emulation. A different kind of emulation, but it is emulation nonetheless. Some prefer to call it a recreation, which isn't true. No original hardware is being photographed and duplicated as seen. You say decapping? Nope. With FPGA you're basically programming lookup tables. Decapping will give you better insight to how certain logic behaves or reveals PROM data visually, things like that. And this is information and emulator or simulator programmer can use. But no new microcircuits are being laid out. So "simulation" is a more appropriate term.

 

Roms on an SD card and having them loaded into a console's memory at runtime is by-and-large commonly considered emulation. SD memory is generally pretty slow, and serial compared to, say, a 2600 VCS cartridge with address and data lines. In a VCS cartridge you can read any byte by toggling address lines. You cannot do that with SD cards. Well technically you can get data returned in blocks and go around the file system. But for all practical purposes and uses there is a filesystem in place. Multiple levels of hardware interfacing and APIs are present. The data is read and copied into system memory where it can be operated on bit-by-bit, byte-by-byte. Simply think of editing a jpeg, you load the whole jpeg an work on it all at once.

 

Everdrives, AtariMax, Harmony, Melody, and other multicarts are technically emulation. Half-assed hybrid emulation if you will. The multicart's circuitry reads from SD and presents that data to the system as it needs it. Hopefully exactly like a genuine cartridge's ROM would. Here you are emulating a single chip - the ROM chip in a cartridge. If you want to be generous, "hardware replacement" could possibly fit. A CPLD/FPGA, ARM processor, DRAM/SRAM, MicroController, those are all parts used to replace a cartridge's ROM chip - with extra functionality.

 

heh..

Edited March 13, 2017 by Keatah

[phoenixdownita]

The SD flashcart "emulation" argument is kind of weak (albeit the special chips if recreated even in FPGA is a kind of HW based emulation/recreation, no arguments here).

 

If SD loading to RAM/PSRAM/Flash is emulation then even swapping a ROM for the pin compatible PROM/EPROM/EEPROM then is emulation which it isn't. Simply all these ways replicate the same addressable "ROM" interface to the host system with compatible timing. [when the Amiga was loading the kickstart ROMs into RAM to be faster I don't remember anyone screaming "emulation" .... but I wasn't listening either]

 

Now as for icemanxp300 using "emulate" as soon as SD load comes into play I am not sure what he means, but we'll never know.

He seems to put in the same basket anything that has to do with loading from SD, so I guess "loading from SD" for HIM is synonymous of emulation, he can suit himself, I don't think it matters.

 

Also SW emulation is a really different beast than HW based aka recreation (on FPGA or otherwise). If it suits anyone's taste to lump them together to argument so be it but he/she shouldn't impose his view onto everyone else just because it fits a sort of narrative (a la "I told you so, it's all emulation, I was right all along") .... we can take it very far as to say when we create molecules in a certain order in a lab we are emulating nature (like the process used to fabricate chips onto a silicon wafer etc... I wouldn't dare to even get into organic compounds like flavorings or gosh synthetic organisms) ... whatev...

 

 

EDIT: .... and because I am at it!

Digital HW is either combinatorial or stateful, in the first case using a lookup table to have an equivalent (I used the right word here, it is not emulation at all) representation is a good way to obtain flexibility. For stateful devices the usual description would go through a state machine and an equivalent representation is via a table driven approach (hence lookup tables again).

 

So combinatorial logic is equivalently described via hard-coded networks of AND/OR/NOT (or equivalent algebra) but also via lookup tables and simple wires connecting them.

Stateful logic has multiple representations all equivalent to each other, one is the table driven + register approach which is what is implemented on an FPGA (and other hard-coded designs, simply the tables/connections are not reprogrammable in those cases).

 

The extra HW present in an FPGA LE/LC (like a carry chain, a adder circuit etc...etc...) is there to allow creating math circuits/shifters etc.. in much easier and efficient way onto the FPGA, it is not necessary as all you really need is the lookup table and the MUX driven out register (flip flop). Doing a lot of circuits that way (the hard way) would be a waste of FPGA resources and it may stumble on timing issues/network max connectivity/fanout limits/propagation delays that are thus avoided by using the extra logic embedded in each LE/LC allowing even relatively small FPGAs to be used for quite complex tasks at reasonable speeds. That's why the FPGA vendors put those "extraneous" elements there.

[+eebuckeye]

Ok.. FPGA is more 'simulation' which makes sense to me. If you consider flash carts as emulation then there is nothing more to say. There is no difference from using an Everdrive with an SD card to the NT Mini with SD card directly.

[Keatah]

The SD flashcart "emulation" argument is kind of weak (albeit the special chips if recreated even in FPGA is a kind of HW based emulation/recreation, no arguments here).

 

If SD loading to RAM/PSRAM/Flash is emulation then even swapping a ROM for the pin compatible PROM/EPROM/EEPROM then is emulation which it isn't. Simply all these ways replicate the same addressable "ROM" interface to the host system with compatible timing. [when the Amiga was loading the kickstart ROMs into RAM to be faster I don't remember anyone screaming "emulation" .... but I wasn't listening either]

 

The act of swapping in a PROM/EPROM/EEPROM based cart is the same as an original masked ROM. There's no processing happening inside any of those technologies.

 

Thing with a flashcart is it now has to do internal processing in order to present the data to the game console. That's where the simulation/emulation comes in. It is different on merits of usage rather than actual electrical implementation. Besides, multi-carts have menus. And their memory/cpld combo is hustling with every clock cycle.

 

The amiga had what was termed WCS or writable control store. Not all that different from Windows or OSX loading into ram. None of that is emulation because they were designed that way from inception.

[Austin]

I am fully aware of what emulation is and tossing a rom on a device and playing it is emulation. You guys can argue all you want and say I am dense, trolling, stupid, whatever you want. It will not change the meaning of emulation.

Actually, let's make that "super dense".

[icemanxp300]

Now as for icemanxp300 using "emulate" as soon as SD load comes into play I am not sure what he means, but we'll never know.

 

It means just that putting roms on a SD card is emulation. So are you trying to tell me that when I load an emulator and roms onto a dreamcast card adapter w/dreamshell and play Nintendo games inside the dreamcast I am not emulating? Give me a break.

 

The difference in swapping roms w/eproms is your are utilizing real hardware such as chips that contain mappers and such, whereas tossing a rom on an everdrive or NT there is no real hardware being used. In a sense you "could" consider it emulating the roms by definition.

 

I want to sidetrack from this for a quick second though. Go on and tell me exactly HOW this NT plays roms on a SD card that has NO mappers attached to them? Does this NT have 100+ different mapper chips hard soldered to the board or does it simply have software added into the system like an EMULATOR that allows it to play those roms!

 

As far as I see it this NT is an aftermarket system that plays NES cartridges and has a built in emulator to allow roms to play from SD cards.

 

Sure a classic mini can't play real carts but it plays roms just the same, so what's the difference?

[Atariboy]

 

It means just that putting roms on a SD card is emulation. So are you trying to tell me that when I load an emulator and roms onto a dreamcast card adapter w/dreamshell and play Nintendo games inside the dreamcast I am not emulating? Give me a break.

 

You're emulating the NES then, because the Dreamcast isn't capable of natively running the code contained on the SD card and requires a program to be ran on the Dreamcast that replicates the functionality of the NES hardware in software to make it possible.

 

It's not emulation because the software is on the SD card. That's just a storage location for the code, just like a rom chip in a NES cartridge is. It's of no consequence and doesn't make it any more emulation that using a Retrode paired with a NES emulator to directly access an original NES cartridge without needing to dump the data first, not emulation.

 

It's of no significance where the code resides. If it's emulation, that means that a replica of the console's guts is being ran in software to duplicate the original hardware's functionality, allowing that unchanged game code to be ran.

 

What you're arguing is just nonsensical. It's like claiming my Atari 7800 is emulating itself whenever I insert my Cuttle Cart II into it, since the rom files are residing on its MMC flash card inside the cartridge rather than on a rom chip.

 

You don't know what emulation is, and thus shouldn't be out to argue the point one way or another.

Edited March 13, 2017 by Atariboy

[phoenixdownita]

Thing with a flashcart is it now has to do internal processing in order to present the data to the game console. That's where the simulation/emulation comes in. It is different on merits of usage rather than actual electrical implementation. Besides, multi-carts have menus. And their memory/cpld combo is hustling with every clock cycle.

So do the mappers in the carts of yesteryear.

[phoenixdownita]

...

I want to sidetrack from this for a quick second though. Go on and tell me exactly HOW this NT plays roms on a SD card that has NO mappers attached to them? Does this NT have 100+ different mapper chips hard soldered to the board or does it simply have software added into the system like an EMULATOR that allows it to play those roms!

....

The Nt mini loads a "core" that is a special kind of "program" for the FPGA to allow it to simulate not only all the chips in the console but also the mappers.

 

The rest of your statements are really vague, if you load an emulator on DC of course you are emulating, by definition, if you instead play a DC games via SD are you emulating the game? No.

The FPGA thing is very different, the program is not really a program more like a set of tables and wiring instructions so the FPGA can simulate digitally all circuits present in the core that is loaded (this is a 10000 feet view if you really care to understand at a deeper level look up FPGA on wikipedia as a quick primer)

 

The fact that FPGA are "programmed" is a little of a misnomer, in reality they are reconfigured and their lookup tables are "reflashed" (some are actually based on real flash some use SRAM some use actual fuses, the last category can't be reprogrammed obviously). So aside the network interconnect config FPGAs are more similar to EEPROMs than anything else, their cells are actually simpler that CPLD of last generations, but there's so much more and more flexibility in connecting them together leading to big advantages hence why CPLD are disappearing fast.

[icemanxp300]

The Nt mini loads a "core" that is a special kind of "EMULATOR" for the FPGA to allow it to simulate not only all the chips in the console but also the mappers.

 

 

Fixed!