Gaston
Mature's Make-up Artist
- Joined
- Jan 15, 2003
- Posts
- 1,352
Nobody in my vicinity would understand wtf I am talking about so I thought I'd vent here.
Recently, everybody seems to be going apeshit over FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) when it comes to retro gaming.
If you don't know what it is; FPGA (hardware) makes it possible to simulate hardware through the use of an HDL (Hardware Description Language) so that the hardware could behave as the actual gaming system you're trying to simulate. Current emulation is based primarily on CPU processing, which can lead to wildly varying results when emulating a system (lag, video rendering etc). FPGA, when used correctly would completely nullify this issue since the HDL would simulate the inner workings of an old console to the T.
Retro Arcade FPGA projects are popping up like shrooms recently and some retro console manufacturers are already using FGPA in their hardware (Analogue NT for example) but I think it will take years and years before we could actually see a device which uses 'definitive' versions of retro console HDL's. I have no clue how hard it is to create an HDL but for something like a neo-geo the logic you would have to build into the HDL is no small undertaking and would require people to fully understand every aspect of a console - something which truly only the original designers could know. If an HDL is not 100% identical to the original hardware, we are still talking emulation - not simulation.
And therein lies the crux. Will FPGA devices truly ever simulate hardware 100% or will we always be talking about emulation? How long before somebody (a community?) decides that an HDL is the definitive version of any system? And would creating an HDL weigh up to the ever increasing processing power of CPU's? Clockspeeds would be very high to emulate higher end or quirky systems but as long as they are capable of brute forcing excellent emulation without aforementioned drawbacks with every release of a new CPU- would it truly matter?
Nevertheless, a very appealing and awesome prospect. I want to see something like the polymega but entirely built with FPGA HDL's for each supported system which will accept both original hardware (carts/CD's) as well as simulating games through rom files.
Now that I have this out of my system, it's time for a coffee
Recently, everybody seems to be going apeshit over FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) when it comes to retro gaming.
If you don't know what it is; FPGA (hardware) makes it possible to simulate hardware through the use of an HDL (Hardware Description Language) so that the hardware could behave as the actual gaming system you're trying to simulate. Current emulation is based primarily on CPU processing, which can lead to wildly varying results when emulating a system (lag, video rendering etc). FPGA, when used correctly would completely nullify this issue since the HDL would simulate the inner workings of an old console to the T.
Retro Arcade FPGA projects are popping up like shrooms recently and some retro console manufacturers are already using FGPA in their hardware (Analogue NT for example) but I think it will take years and years before we could actually see a device which uses 'definitive' versions of retro console HDL's. I have no clue how hard it is to create an HDL but for something like a neo-geo the logic you would have to build into the HDL is no small undertaking and would require people to fully understand every aspect of a console - something which truly only the original designers could know. If an HDL is not 100% identical to the original hardware, we are still talking emulation - not simulation.
And therein lies the crux. Will FPGA devices truly ever simulate hardware 100% or will we always be talking about emulation? How long before somebody (a community?) decides that an HDL is the definitive version of any system? And would creating an HDL weigh up to the ever increasing processing power of CPU's? Clockspeeds would be very high to emulate higher end or quirky systems but as long as they are capable of brute forcing excellent emulation without aforementioned drawbacks with every release of a new CPU- would it truly matter?
Nevertheless, a very appealing and awesome prospect. I want to see something like the polymega but entirely built with FPGA HDL's for each supported system which will accept both original hardware (carts/CD's) as well as simulating games through rom files.
Now that I have this out of my system, it's time for a coffee
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