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Digital Foundry Preview: Console that plays all cartridge and CD games from dead platforms, the Polymega
- Thread starter mutantmagnet
- Start date
Being a closed-box system means no ROM hacks. No custom levels, randomizers, translations, or a lot of other things that make emulation cool.
I'm really want to see how PS1 and Sega Saturn titles run, those are my main consoles of interest for this thing.
Same. I'm about to pull the trigger on preorder but there isn't much out there on the system. Also any idea on release date?
no FPGA, no sale.
There's no way the cd emulation is going to be better than what we can get on our PC's/Raspberry Pi's
There's no way the cd emulation is going to be better than what we can get on our PC's/Raspberry Pi's
I played my copy of Shining the Holy Ark on a PC emulator a few years ago and didn't notice any issues. It's my understanding that there are pretty solid Saturn emulator(s) these days.
very well, there are a ton of videos on youtube showing how mednafen performs. or if you have a pc download the retroach cores (known as beetle) or standalone and give it a go right now https://mednafen.github.io/
Ah, cool. Looking forward to it.
Makes sense for the neo geo, but I thought byuu made csnes specifically for this kind of usecase. Maybe he abandoned it.
Did you see the video? They have some automatic rom hacks for select games that you can choose pre-boot. It downloaded an "HD" version of the NES Metroid for example.
I'm part of a small niche of people who has original copies of games and wants to use them, but I also want to use modern televisions with HDMI (especially for recording footage).
that had crossed my mind too so it either isn't developed enough for him to want to push it out there as a general use emulator or he just considered other stuff to be more important and didn't finish it, see lots of neogeo pocket and mega cd work over the past few months.
Same. The idea of being able to play all my old games with the benefits on emulation on my HDTV, and play using my original discs like a proper console is very appealing to me.
In that case mate I understand what you're saying, but it's simply charging $400-$650 for FREE PC emulators with less options. I just think you'd get a much better result utilising that money into a specialist emulation PC. I know it's more hassle to set up - but the end result will be superior...
EDIT: I do understand the simplicity argument, but I'm just expressing my view not to annoy anyone!
Well, if I do end up buying this it'll certainly be down the line when I have the money! I just prefer using something like this over a PC since for PC gaming I really have issues getting distracted (I often just want to quit the game to surf the web or something).
Modern Vintage Gamer on YouTube went in depth about this system. Considering he wrote many of the early emulators we have used I trust his excitment for it.
500$ for the complete package. I feel like for 500$, you could build a PC and emulate more + play thousands of PC games.
I mean I get that this is more hassle free and all but I would never pay that much for an emulation device.
I mean I get that this is more hassle free and all but I would never pay that much for an emulation device.
What a strange little device.
Are they locking the systems behind purchasing each adapter? as it feels like all the CPU and power is in the base unit and the detachable component is just a glorified USB hub with the relevant I/O slots on it. I already feel a bit weird buying multiple Analogue systems when the internals are almost identical to one another, so I really hope they let folks who already have USB controllers and digital rips of their games, to play them without the need (and cost) for the adapters.
I also don't understand why FPGA became unviable, the chips themselves are sold near cost due to them being intended for development. Up to around the SNES or Megadrive it ends up being more cost effective getting a Cyclone 5 as opposed to a much higher clocked ARM chip to do software emulation. Even systems which have too high a memory bandwidth to work on the (cheap) FPGA chips, tend to use a Z80 or M68k chip somewhere else (sound, inputs, io controller etc) so it's not like it would go to waste putting one in.
So where are they trying to position this?
If I wanted a re-usable device that can perfectly emulate a ton of things with no additional cost overhead, I would get a MiSTer.
If I wanted hassle free, perfect emulation of classic systems, I would get the Analogue systems.
If I wanted passable software emulation of more recent consoles, (PSX, Model 1/2, Naomi, NeoGeo) I would get a Rasp Pi 4
It's a little bit weird that nobody in the scene really knows where they are getting their emulation software from, there are maybe only a handful of people who can write great emulators for some of these systems, as you need to be almost obsessive about a system to understand all its idiosyncrasies, undocumented op codes, graphical quirks etc. So it's not like they can just write a bunch of them in-house with a small team.
Are they locking the systems behind purchasing each adapter? as it feels like all the CPU and power is in the base unit and the detachable component is just a glorified USB hub with the relevant I/O slots on it. I already feel a bit weird buying multiple Analogue systems when the internals are almost identical to one another, so I really hope they let folks who already have USB controllers and digital rips of their games, to play them without the need (and cost) for the adapters.
I also don't understand why FPGA became unviable, the chips themselves are sold near cost due to them being intended for development. Up to around the SNES or Megadrive it ends up being more cost effective getting a Cyclone 5 as opposed to a much higher clocked ARM chip to do software emulation. Even systems which have too high a memory bandwidth to work on the (cheap) FPGA chips, tend to use a Z80 or M68k chip somewhere else (sound, inputs, io controller etc) so it's not like it would go to waste putting one in.
So where are they trying to position this?
If I wanted a re-usable device that can perfectly emulate a ton of things with no additional cost overhead, I would get a MiSTer.
If I wanted hassle free, perfect emulation of classic systems, I would get the Analogue systems.
If I wanted passable software emulation of more recent consoles, (PSX, Model 1/2, Naomi, NeoGeo) I would get a Rasp Pi 4
It's a little bit weird that nobody in the scene really knows where they are getting their emulation software from, there are maybe only a handful of people who can write great emulators for some of these systems, as you need to be almost obsessive about a system to understand all its idiosyncrasies, undocumented op codes, graphical quirks etc. So it's not like they can just write a bunch of them in-house with a small team.
To everyone saying that you could just do this on a PC, where are you getting the PC cart readers for NES/SNES/Genesis/TG16 cartridges?
Kinda tempted for this as it'll open up import games a bit easier as I'm in the PAL regions, especially if things like translation patches are doable on the console. Easyish access to US PS1 games? Sure! Able to play US SNES and (urgh) Genesis games without either mutilating a SFC or buying yet another black box and swapping between them? Cool! Those JRPGs that never left Japan? Yeah okay! All of that in a oner? Absolutely! Obviously it'd be nice to have hardware emulation over software stuff, but as far as all in one solutions go this is looking pretty decent. Hoping the emulation holds up across the board, and it's not like I'll be dumping my consoles anyway so can always jump between for some things.
The shipping price is a bit of a hit though :|. Wondering if they'll get a distro over here.
The shipping price is a bit of a hit though :|. Wondering if they'll get a distro over here.
I think FPGA could have been viable for some systems but not others which would make it a bit strange, perhaps. Like...you're not doing Sega Saturn on a Cyclone V and stuff like Sega CD and 32x is perhaps too complex as well. PlayStation is feasible but difficult and nobody has done that yet.
I don't think the experience would be seamless either. For cart systems, yeah, the FPGA could be included in each adapter piece but for the CD systems it's more difficult and slower.
There's potential there but I can see why FPGA was abandoned for this type of project.
Inside jokes strike again. It's Alfred Chicken.
I think you're underestimating the appeal of an attractive looking box that does everything with a clean interface. I know plenty of people that are very much into that idea.
It's just another potential segment. Lots of people went in on stuff like the Retron 5 (which is horrible) just due to that centralized design. These people don't want to mess with a Pi and that's fine.
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You can't play off the actual carts or discs with this product. It dumps them and turns them into roms/images. There are already many ways to accomplish that feat without the Polymega.
Hence my question of how are you reading & dumping carts on a PC? There's the Retrode, but that's only SNES/Genesis. Also from what I can tell, the Retrode is no longer actively being produced.
For NES you'd use Kazzo (or INLretro now apparently).
I'd be surprised if Retrode didn't get another run, I suspect evildragon is too busy with the Pyra right now to do so. He's sold out of retrodes multiple times. Skaman was making hucard connectors, you can pm him on the retrode forum.
It's still ripping your physical copies, seems easy enough to use and also acts like a proper console. I don't want to turn my old console games into a PC gaming experience. I want to have a console underneath my HDTV that can play all these old games and have them look good.
OP
OP
I came across another preview thanks to someone here suggesting Modern Vintage Gamer and he talks about a few things that digital foundry didn't cover.
It turns out they decided to not have an all in one FPGA. What they did instead was make FPGA in the separate modules but only for the ones they felt capable if doing right. The Saturn module is specifically 100% software emulation, no fpga.
He also mentions who made the various emulators but I'm not familiar with the emulator scene so you are better off listening to the extensive list of name drops.
He also covers a few other technical details everyone who cares will find interesting.
Thanks for sharing, another great video to go alongside the Digital Foundry one.
Seems odd (and possibly just reported incorrectly) that they are putting processing power within the console specific modules as opposed to the base unit, I figured they would go with a razor blade strategy of selling the base unit with all the CPU horsepower in it, at near cost. Then make all the money off the 'console modules' which could just be basic I/O shells but required to actually use those emulation cores.
If i just wanted to play Saturn or PS1 games i could just buy the basic model for $299 right? If so that's not a bad price.
the cpu that will handle all the software emulation is in the base unit, not the modules.
Retrode does SNES, Genesis, 32X, N64, Game Gear, Sega Master System, Turbo Grafx 16, Virtual Boy, Neo Geo Pocket, Atari 2600, and Lynx. It is how I dump the vast majority of my carts. The only big ones it doesn't support are Atari 8-bit/Colecovision/Commodore carts, which I use a MaxFlash USB for. For NES carts, I use a Kazzo.
I had to build an adapter for TurboGrafx 16 for my retrode which wasn't hard to do, but the easiest way to get a hucard dumper these days is with a Super SD System 3, which supports hucard dumping. I've dumped TG-16, PC Engine, and even SuperGrafx games using the Super SD System 3.
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The inside of the Polymega is literally a PC. It's an off the shelf Intel processor and motherboard. All it has is a fancy front end. It doesn't seem like something that couldn't be accomplished with other hardware for much much cheaper.
"Why don't they make a system that plays everything and has all the connectors and slots?" -Me 2001 when the GameCube released. This is pretty much what I imagined back then. Of course this is emulation, but all the same to me. Not really interested anymore though.
So it's using Mednafen for SNES? Which....is BSNES? Wonder how that works out licensewise.
I bought a kazzo board but I can never get the damn thing to work no matter how much I update the mapper scripts or tinker around.
Well, PC is always going to offer the best performance for emulation just due to vast horsepower.
Is Saturn emulation on Pi really that good, though? I didn't realize it was full-speed across the board! That's pretty impressive.
I could do full speed saturn emulation in many games in SSF back around 2005 on a shitty dell laptop. I don't know why this idea that Saturn emulation has been a high bar has persisted for years. Even today, emulators for the saturn are still single threaded applications, so it's not like there has been a huge advancement in technology to run said emulation.
Last time I messed around with it on a Pi it was pretty slow but it's been a while. I'd imagine a Pi 4 will help there anyways. It's been great on PC for a long time, though, yes.
Oh yeah no comment about running on a raspberry Pi, as those are slow microcomputers in the first place. Talking more about the above conversation about PC hardware that could run SSF or whatever. It's not surprising to me that they can build a box like this that relies on software emulation without it being so incredibly pricey. The x86 hardware that can run saturn games has been cheap for like 15 years now.
I think AMD 64 3000+ was the first cpu I had that could handle SSF with no speed issues. Was great to finally be able to stop using girigiri.
Mednafen of course has far greater cpu requirements, but then Pentium Gold is far more powerful then my old 3000+.
Mednafen of course has far greater cpu requirements, but then Pentium Gold is far more powerful then my old 3000+.