Polymega....... - http://www.mmcafe.com/ Forums


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neo0r0chiaku
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"Polymega......." , posted Sat 16 May 06:01post reply

Anyone plan on getting the Polymega? Seen some videos testing the beta system that some people received to review the console ahead of its lunch in July i believe. One Yuutube user in Japan has a dedicated channel on testing the games on the system. Also after reviewing others, its seems its a 100% that all Neo Geo CD games have little to no loading times. That in itself is extremely impressive. What is the benefit of playing Neo Geo CD games aside from your MVS or AES? Those awesome crisp sounding arranged soundtracks.

Odd story on my end, when it came to arranged OST for Neo Geo games in the 90s, i was not fund of them. I always wanted that crunchy arcade sound. As i gret older, i came to appreciate the arranged soundtracks, let alone sound quality itself, that its beautiful to listen to this day.

Sorry I got side tracked, i do have some bad news, well for some. Sega Saturn loading times are still there. Maybe, just maybe, a cut in loading time up to 3-5 seconds. IT still there though. Wow.





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"Re(1):Polymega......." , posted Sun 17 May 03:28post reply

What is it? It can in mean that my beloved Mega CD Mini is finally, finally going to follow shortly thereafter?!





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"Re(2):Polymega......." , posted Sun 17 May 10:46:post reply

quote:
What is it? It can in mean that my beloved Mega CD Mini is finally, finally going to follow shortly thereafter?!


It's essentially a modular retro-console with archival features.Unlike Analogue's offerings, however, it utilizes emulation (abeit supposedly accurate) to run its games.
It has gotten a lot of coverage in the past, but has garnered a reputation for being vaporware due to its founders flip-flopping between its claims.

It's most recent module released does Sega MegaDrive/Genesis & 32X.





[this message was edited by sfried on Sun 17 May 10:48]



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"Re(3):Polymega......." , posted Mon 18 May 04:24post reply

Poking around their site, I fully approved of their focus on the greatest CD systems that lack proper re-releases like PCE, Mega CD, Neo Geo CD, and Saturn, as well as their interest in the video game archival movement. 400 bucks is a lot, so I can see how just grabbing a SFC Mini or something appeals, but the emphasis on being able to save your CD games to the hard drive shows they’re getting closer to that balance of having a million ROMs on the computer but wanting to play on the TV without a big dumb HDMI cable, and the pointless endeavor of having a single retro game console that still requires you to keep all the clutter of old CDs and carts around if you actually want to play them.





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"Re(3):Polymega......." , posted Mon 18 May 06:09post reply

quote:
Unlike Analogue's offerings, however, it utilizes emulation (abeit supposedly accurate) to run its games.


I've always been bugged by Analogue's marketing claims. I understand what they are saying; they aren't using software emulation. But the way they say it is (potentially intentionally) misleading.

They happily promote that FPGA "operates on a transistor level implementation of its functionality", but do not acknowledge that their products are not necessarily accurate to the source system at a transistor level. Analogue is likely still "emulating" the functionality, it is just that the emulator is being written at a hardware transistor level rather than a software machine code level.

That is why when it came to some rather obscure accuracy issues, the Super Nt apparently matched the mistakes of BSNES rather than the performance of a real console.







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"Re(4):Polymega......." , posted Mon 18 May 09:00:post reply

quote:
That is why when it came to some rather obscure accuracy issues, the Super Nt apparently matched the mistakes of BSNES rather than the performance of a real console.


The guy responsible for Super NT's FPGA programing, Kevin Horton AKA "Kevtris", has done a lot of work trying to tune the system to operate with even the most obscure Super NES/Super Famicom titles like Rendering Ranger, Megalomania, and that one Speedy Gonzales game that would crash when an in-game button is pressed. The firmware has seen updates, but unlike patched emulation with is usually on a per game basis, the fixes for the Super NT can affect several other games so each revision is thoroughly tested.

I agree with the sentiment that FPGAs would be considered hardware emulation.

One thing that has been noted is that while it is possible to run the games at a cycle accurate speed, Analogue's devices run them at 60Hz to match modern digital standards. Original consoles do not output a perfect 60Hz refresh, but more like 59.997 or something like that.

Also, until someone has come out with a lightgun substitute for modern televisions for those consoles, you might still have to rely on a standard CRT and their DAC to play stuff like Yoshi's Safari and the obscure Battle Clash/Metal Combat games.





[this message was edited by sfried on Mon 18 May 09:01]



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"Re(5):Polymega......." , posted Mon 18 May 09:47post reply

Yeah, FPGAs are really cool things, but they aren't the be-all and end-all. They are incredibly powerful tools for people doing hardware development, because they can test how well the circuit design works without needing to actually create a physical fabrication of that thing, and that's pretty great.

I think that there is no way you can ever be entirely happy with an emulation of the original hardware, and at some point, you also can't be happy with the original product, either: CRT TVs are a huge pain in the butt, being able to save and load wherever and fast forward and customize your controller and play games online or wacky/cool hacks are really great things, and so on. Being able to play a version of Super Ghouls n Ghosts with a fix for the programming bug causing the slowdown is just not something you'd ever be able to do with an original cartridge and system!





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"Re(6):Polymega......." , posted Mon 18 May 13:02:post reply

As an avid fan of the Sega Saturn console (not to mention its pad), a console that can play my old games on HDMI is an excellent welcome. I'm not sure whether to take the Polymega for that however; its Saturn emulation is reportedly very focused, but it still seems to be in development-- it will be interesting to see how well it goes!





[this message was edited by Professor on Mon 18 May 14:09]