HARDCORE is being released for the first time ever on Mega Sg!!

[OverDrone]

Seems like a pretty solid-looking Turrican style game. I'd likely spring for a MD cart if it was to become available.

[Firebrandx]

An FPGA is just a device that emulates hardware. Traditional emulation made to run on computers can be and in many cases is already as accurate or better than the best FPGAs.

The difference in 'accuracy' purely depends on the coder. However, if you take say a software and an FPGA version of equal accuracy, the FPGA will have the better potential due to no overhead. You can customize and build an FPGA solution that ONLY has one job, whereas software solutions require an operating system that typically has multiple jobs and a lot of overhead. The has to be overcome by how powerful and fast the hardware is, so you could be looking at quite the expensive machine for say 100% accuracy versus and FPGA solution that is also 100% accurate.

So waiting for the FPGA craze to "die down" like Gryson wants is going to be a LONG wait. It's only going to get better and better as obsessive coders master the format. Instead of getting 'annoyed' by the format, you should be embracing it and hoping more and more skilled coders get familiar with it.

I'm quite glad to hear users voice their disdain that the game is being released on a totally unnecessary expensive device.

I've got several Genesis consoles, my audio mods for them, and Everdrive X7 to preserve my game library, yet I jumped at the chance to buy a Mega Sg. Having a standalone console coded by Kevtris that hooks directly into your HDTV with perfect digital clarity is NOT a 'totally unnecessary expensive device'. Lets face it, the best we can do on the original hardware is an OSSC, which of course requires displays that handle OSSC 4x and 5x scales, and even then you can't dial in perfect optimal timing due to the fractional dot clock frequency of the system. If I want to take the Mega SG over to a friend's house, I can hook it right up to his display and be playing Genesis games in a jiffy with crystal-clarity. Can't do that with the original hardware, even if you lugged around an OSSC and an RGB cable as you most likely won't get a picture to work beyond line2x mode.

[Gryson]

The difference in 'accuracy' purely depends on the coder. However, if you take say a software and an FPGA version of equal accuracy, the FPGA will have the better potential due to no overhead. You can customize and build an FPGA solution that ONLY has one job, whereas software solutions require an operating system that typically has multiple jobs and a lot of overhead. The has to be overcome by how powerful and fast the hardware is, so you could be looking at quite the expensive machine for say 100% accuracy versus and FPGA solution that is also 100% accurate.

So waiting for the FPGA craze to "die down" like Gryson wants is going to be a LONG wait. It's only going to get better and better as obsessive coders master the format. Instead of getting 'annoyed' by the format, you should be embracing it and hoping more and more skilled coders get familiar with it.

You're ignoring context. I was responding to someone who said that FPGA is "closer to genuine hardware than anything else anyone has done." This reflects the CRAZE (yes, it is a craze) for FPGA that has been created/perpetuated by Kevin Horton/Analogue, whereby software emulation is garbage and FPGA is somehow "more accurate" (or, as he says on his website, "total accuracy").

Yes, it is true that software emulation requires more processing power to achieve accuracy, but at the same time, FPGA requires the purchase of expensive dedicated hardware. Most people already have a computer that is capable of flawless software emulation of 16-bit systems. Nothing will surpass the flexibility/customization of software emulation.

I hope to see advancements in open-source, low-cost FPGA. I don't support Analogue's aggressive, ignorant attack against software emulation.

[homerhomer]

FPGAs are great but they're not 100% perfect. My AVS stopped playing Ghosts n Goblins after I updated the firmware and I needed to revert. I'm happy that I bought mine and but they're still not the original hardware. For instance, with the AVS there's some cool options with color palette and I think it's cool, but I'm not sure any of them are correct. Also I'm not sure FPGAs qualify for speedruns, they usually play games sightly( very very slightly ) faster or slower. When hooking up the original hardware there is no question about palette. With that said I totally think they're worth the asking price for what are and do.

The real issue is users want to legally buy this game and our options are PS4 software emulation or we can purchase the Analog SG for FPGA. If you don't have a PS4, you're looking at paying $300+ (PS4 $265 + game price) or you can buy the Analog SG for $220 (189.99 + $30 shipping).

Being a enthusiast and collector is hard.

[Sik]

The main thing about FPGAs is that they make it easier to handle timing-based quirks (in software it's hell to keep all parts in sync while retaining performance, while on a FPGA it basically comes for free). But as far as accuracy goes, it's only as good as the knowledge (and effort) of the people implementing it.

But yeah, there's a craze going on right now and I doubt it'll ever go down any time soon. Much like how there has been large attacks on any emulator that isn't a RetroArch core the last couple of years or so, expect to see an attack to all emulators in general because they aren't MiSTer cores.

[axel]

You're ignoring context. I was responding to someone who said that FPGA is "closer to genuine hardware than anything else anyone has done." This reflects the CRAZE (yes, it is a craze) for FPGA that has been created/perpetuated by Kevin Horton/Analogue, whereby software emulation is garbage and FPGA is somehow "more accurate" (or, as he says on his website, "total accuracy").

Yes, it is true that software emulation requires more processing power to achieve accuracy, but at the same time, FPGA requires the purchase of expensive dedicated hardware. Most people already have a computer that is capable of flawless software emulation of 16-bit systems. Nothing will surpass the flexibility/customization of software emulation.

I hope to see advancements in open-source, low-cost FPGA. I don't support Analogue's aggressive, ignorant attack against software emulation.

I don't think software emulation is garbage, consider it no better or worse than FPGA the one thing I didn't know is that it's possible to get lag-free emulation in software. Without that advantage I agree I don't see much point to FPGA if software can provide the same level of accuracy and responsiveness.

[Mad Moham]

Is there someone we can ask about the possibility of a cart/rom release? There's been quite a few names mentioned in regard to getting the game released, so there's got to be someone who can confirm either way. Obviously there's been no mention of a cartridge, but there's been no official statement that there won't be a cart either and it would be nice to know for certain. Judging by the comments made on here so far, I think a cart would sell really well.

Maybe they've kept tight lipped about a cartridge for now in order to maintain interest in the Mega-SG?

[Gryson]

I doubt there's going to be a cartridge release, at least from Analogue. That's a whole different product pipeline from what they do. They probably spent a pretty penny to get the rights and want to make it exclusive in order to recoup losses through Mega SG sales.

Also, as mentioned here, it's not clear if this game will run on real hardware or if there's some custom code in the Mega SG.

[Mad Moham]

it's not clear if this game will run on real hardware or if there's some custom code in the Mega SG.

Having seen the video from the datastorm party 8 years ago, I'm inclined to believe that the game runs perfectly on real hardware (I see no reason why it wouldn't). I can understand Analogue having no part in a cartridge release, but someone must have talked about it. Its in the interest of the developer to sell the cartridge rights to someone, so I doubt there's permanent exclusivity granted to Analogue. My point is that we don't know and it would be nice to find someone we can ask. There's definitely someone who knows whether or not it can happen.

Whatever happens I won't buy a Mega-SG unless all of my current consoles fail and that will take a while judging by how well they've lasted so far.


*Edit
I also want to make it clear right now that I very much doubt that the game was recovered from a dead HDD. That whole line reeks of marketing hype, almost like saying "supply is limited, act now before we sell out of the 1million units we manufactured!"

[Zygrunt]

Yeah, I guess an MD cart release is out of the scope of what Strictly Limited Games and Analogue are doing so you probably need another company involved for it to happen.

[Black_Tiger]

It's a small investment and low risk to sell a digital game on platforms with millions of users at a low price with a hefty profit margin.

Attempting to physically publish a Genesis/Mega Drive game is a much larger investment with a hefty price and much lower profit margin. All to sell to a tiny market full of consumers who are notoriously cheap and love to complain about physical releases.

And then once it's out on a cart it will immediately be ripped and posted online. They'd have little to gain and everything to lose. Which makes it all the less likely that the Mega NT contains a standard Mega Drive rom driven by the FPGA.

[Sik]

Running arbitrary software on a pure FPGA is not as trivial as it sounds (as you'd need to load a core for whatever will run said software) and there's already a Mega Drive core (obviously) so the obvious choice is to use the existing core. So I'm going to guess it's the actual ROM of the game running on it.

[Lion]

Meh. Don't get me wrong, I'd like to play the game, but there's no way in hell that I'm going to buy a new console for it when my existing Mega Drive works just fine.

On the other hand, I'd be all over a cart release.

This.

[Pha]

HARDCORE seems not so bad.

[Pha]

By the way, a new game on megadrive/genesis is always good news, but the Mega SG doesn't handle the 32X : a nice bullshit because it could have could have been worth its price (the impact would have been enormous).

Dear competitor of the Mega SG there is a place to take, it's as simple as that.