When I saw the announcement for the Analog 3D, I thought, "Come on, no way."
I mean, recreating in hardware the
original Nest, the Super Nintendo, yeah, I can kind of believe that. I mean,
those are cheap 2D systems, but a 3D
gaming system like the Nintendo 64, that's got to be impossible. Well, guess
what? It's not. Here it is. a brand new
recreation of the Nintendo 64 with
modern conveniences like 4K output over
HDMI along with sophisticating filters and upscaling that claim to make your
old games look the best they ever have, maybe even better than the original
hardware. Also, back here, we have an SD card
storage slot that'll hold our software, two USBA ports, as well as a USBC port
for power in. Moving around to the front. Oh yes, my friends. Full support
for original Nintendo 64 controllers or
little brother clones as well as built-in support for Bluetooth
controllers like this one from 8bit do
that we're going to be checking out alongside it. That does not really look
like an N64 controller, but it is designed to work best with N64 games
while adopting a more modern ergonomic
design. So you've got that same what do they call it? Just the the notches in
your joystick, but now it's Hall effect. So it won't just turn into a sloppy
flaccid [music] what that's the best way to describe the N64 stick. You also got
your AV buttons along with your C buttons. And then okay, I'm going to
have to figure this out later. There's only one trigger on the original N64
controller. It's called Z, but now there's two Z's. So maybe you can just
decide if you want to press it with your right or your left. All right, we'll check that out more later. First, what's
in the box?
What? I'm so confused. See, I thought it
was illegal to include power adapters and power cables. Why is nobody else
doing it? No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I understand why they're doing it. To save money. Not your money, their
money. Anything else in here? Oh. Oh, there is. There's a secret thing.
What? I really thought that said something
else. That just Yeah. Okay, FPGA. Now is
a perfect opportunity to talk about what an FPGA is. Unlike the processor in your
computer right now, which has all its functionality baked in at the factory, a
field programmable gate array is kind of like a CPU or a GPU or an anything PU
that can be programmed after the fact. The advantage of this approach is, of
course, the flexibility. You can use an FPGA in anything from a retro gaming
device to a medical device to a video editing accelerator. Anything that might
not be able to sell in the kind of volume that you would need to have in
order to justify the upfront cost of developing an ASIC. But the drawback is
that the price to performance of them is a lot lower. This is a 20 nanmter chip
when you know the latest processors are what 3 4 nmters and it has a whopping
220,000 programmable elements. That is a
fraction of the number of transistors you would find in a pre-baked [music] ASIC. And it's not cheap. The analog 3D
started at $250 and has already gone up a little bit. But hey, look at this. It
includes a pair of lungs. In all seriousness, don't blow in your
cartridges. Realistically though, for the folks who are into this stuff, I
don't think another $20 is going to deter them. And I don't even blame
Analog for charging a little bit more. FPGAAS are expensive, and the
development of the system was also expensive. Unlike software emulation,
which can be plagued with glitches and incompatibilities, even today, even for
older systems like the Nintendo 64, this is a full hardware recreation of the
original hardware with features added.
Like the aforementioned 4K [music] output, I want to see it go. Oh, right.
I haven't finished showing the interface. We've got a reset button on the top and a power button on the top
and then a non-slidy bottom. And uh yep,
that's about it. One issue with this console that has been raised by some
folks is that it can be a bit of a fingerprint magnet. Oh, don't touch it
then. You're supposed to be gaming with your controller, not the device itself. How do How do you game? I I don't know.
To me, I I I don't think that's a major issue. All right. Should we get this
display out? >> Segue to our sponsor. >> Oh, not until we segue to our sponsor,
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>> No, it's another 40 bucks. >> Another 40 bucks. So, you're at 310 by
the time you pick up this 8-bit do controller and the analog 3D. And of
course, unless you already have a game collection, you're going to need one of
those because while some flash carts, that is to say piracy cartridges do
work, some don't. So, your mileage may vary on that. Now, I'm a little confused
because I have not actually activated the power button and it [music] is in
fact quite on. So, it it is on.
>> Oh. Oh, it's a it's a momentary switch. I just turned it off.
One moment, please. Hey, why don't I plug in my controller in the meantime?
I'm going to start with an OG controller and we'll try this later. The N64 is
kind of a weird one for me because it's part of my childhood, but not because I
owned one. I had a Super Nintendo and no way that I was going to get another
Nintendo when I already had Nintendo at home. So, I only ever played on my
friend's N64. So, most of my memories of the system are just getting my ass
kicked by the guy who owns the system when I don't own one. Anywh who,
multiplayer as it was meant to be. That's such a core part of why anyone
would want this because the N64 was one of, if not arguably the greatest
multiplayer consoles. What is it? Something like 70% of all N64 games were
multiplayer. >> It's not hard when there's only 400 games. >> Whoa. Damn. All right. In-game menu.
What do we got? And library. Jump to inserted cartridge. B. Okay, sure. I can
do that. All right. Hell yeah. That's my library, baby. Uh,
all right. Oh, configure. Whoa. Let's
go. I think I'm going to stick on auto for the very first experience. But there
is some cool stuff to talk about in here. You can force original hardware,
which will let it run the way that it did. Meaning that there are games that
are going to [clears throat] lag and stutter, or there's actually an auto
overclocking builtin that will allow original games to run even smoother than
they would have on the original hardware. That's pretty sick. I'm not
enough of a retro emulation nerd to know exactly what all of this stuff is. Scan
lines obviously are the scan lines that make old school consoles look, you know,
like they used to look instead of unnaturally clean like they do on modern
displays. I'm kind of tempted to just go consumer CRT in terms of the mode, but I
said that I would do the default. So, the default was BVM. The hell's BVM? Am
I supposed to know what that is? Oh, broadcast monitor. Okay. So, like a
super high-end CRT is what we're sort of
aiming to emulate here. Oh, dude, it actually does look very CRT like.
That's cool. Even with the fringing.
Love that. Always Yoshi. It was like it was always a race for who could press
down fastest. Time has not been kind to
this joystick. Both this specific one and just in
general. See, the fact that the CPU players do not have to contend with the
disadvantage of their character choice is so unfair. So, they could just be
Bowser, and if Bowser is RNG to be like, you know, your rival that does really
good the whole time, then he's just fast and heavy. So dumb. Okay. Yeah. The
drifting is not the same as Mario Kart DS. Oh my god. Whenever that Oh, I'm
taken all the way back to like childhood rage right now. I want to try this
controller. That's the first thing I want to do. Oh, okay. That was easy.
There's a button right there. Look at that. Easy peasy.
Well, I mean, maybe. Let's see if Let's see how this goes.
Painless. Completely painless.
Okay, here we go. Let's try an analog stick that doesn't feel like it's as old
as me. I guess it's probably the Smash crowd that likes the authenticity of
those flats in the joystick. For someone who's more into like how
finely can I control this? I can't say that that's my preference cuz I am I am
all over the place and I
can only mostly blame my skills. Oh man,
it's that's very sensitive. It is nice to not have like a giant floppy dead
zone though. O
this is embarrassing. Just cut all of this. Let's cut all this
out. Why don't we try a couple other display modes? That's the problem. I
needed to be in consumer CRT mode.
Yeah, this is gonna fix all my problems. Get out of the way. Get out of the way.
Get out of my way. Oh, yeah. No, this is definitely right, though. It looks like
the right kind of crappy. Come on. What was What was that? Oh,
that's nice. So, you get a dedicated button for bringing up the menu on this controller. That's pretty sick. Okay,
display mode. Okay, let's try clean just to show you guys what
it's not supposed to look like. That looks so bad.
>> Vehicles look really bad. >> Oh yeah, this is like look. Oh, stop it.
Wow, that really is like super ass.
Scan lines are okay, but I'd say the
default was probably right. BVM looks good.
Looks really good. What's really wild is this isn't even the best case scenario
for the scaler. This is a 1440p display. So, we'll switch over to the 4K TV
behind me in a moment. I just wanted to see what it would look like on just, you
know, my monitor. I've been told Golden Eye really doesn't hold up that well. I
don't know if I believe it. Did I just rip the game out? Nice.
Oh, that's cool. So, you can just have like different configurations for all your games. Oh, I like that. adds it to
your nice little library. They apparently redid their OS for this.
What's it called? 3D OS now. Cool. >> Wait, wait, wait, wait. Here my
controller. I'll play from here. >> All right, let's go.
Let's go. Man, I cannot remember
>> this is >> how to play this. You can't hit me. You
can't hit this. You can't hit this. You can't hit this. I mean, it looks about
as good as it can probably look. >> All right. You want to switch to the
last game on the TV? >> Yeah. Let's try another game. Oh, nice. It's running in HDR, which is actually
needed if you want the most CRT- like experience because anywhere on a CRT
where there wasn't an image, it was off. So, in a dark room, CRTs actually
provide better contrast than an LCD. Uh,
zoom. Hello. Oh, clean pins with the
white side. Okay, here we go.
[laughter] What? Well, that explains why it wasn't
working. Wow. Gross.
Grooy brother. Oh my god, that looks so
[laughter] ass. Adding the scan lines fixes it so much. Okay, let's go with
BVM. Okay, start. Okay, well, I have no
idea how to do this. So, okay, I'm in
the front and I guess I just do I do Oh, wow. That's unfortunate.
>> I don't think my controller works. >> I am hugging a wall.
>> I thought you said you owned this game. Yeah, >> my controller doesn't work.
>> You know, I'm the one on the top, right? >> I got the little brother controller.
>> You did not. You have the same controller I do. >> It ain't working.
>> Is it a range issue? >> I don't know. I'm not far away from it.
>> I tried to do a back flip. >> Did not work. Oh, wow.
>> Oh, wow. That's That's >> That looks horrible. >> Yeah, that's something. >> Not going to lie, that looks god awful.
>> So far then, very cool. Maybe even
swell. But this is far from the only way to enjoy your old games on your new TV.
And we also have an original N64 hooked up through a Retro Tank. Can we Can we
at least just try this one game? We'll give you one more shot at racing me.
>> Let's go. >> In this game on the Retro Tank. Oh, wait. Before we do that, now is as good
a time as any to talk about the physical differences. Analog 3D. Smaller,
sleeker.
Oh no. >> Well, now you broken it. You want me to
fix it? >> Oh, right. We didn't mention that it's
completely region unlocked. I think we just accidentally realized that we
cannot play this game cuz it's a different region cartridge in this N64
here. So, you can see the region locks. That's so lame. And then you can see the
little block in there. Nintendo, why are you like this? Why
were you always like this? And why are you still like this? All right, Diddy
Kong Racing. This is our tiebreaker. Once again, we're going to have to kind
of play around with our filtering and upscaling. Uh,
>> right now, this looks bad. >> Yeah. Yeah. Give me a sec. Give me a sec. >> It's like watching a VHS tape.
>> HDR on. >> Whoa, that is punchy.
definite advantage to the uh analog 3D
is it's a little less ownorous. I
haven't touched this thing in like
a long time. [laughter] I don't remember how to set this thing
up well enough. Kind of look bad, bro. N64 has one of the worst outputs of any
console ever. >> Okay. >> I thought they were here to help you. No, [laughter]
they put a softening filter on everything to uh minimize the aliasing,
but it makes it really crappy, >> right? >> That's why the analog one's pretty cool,
>> right? >> Retrottink is also FPGA powered and very
expensive. And if you really want the most out of that, you're going to need a
modded N64 that doesn't have the stock output. So, I guess, you know, whatever.
This is probably about as good as this is going
to get. Let's play Diddy Kong Racing.
It's pretty bad. I don't know what I was expecting. I think I was expecting this
to be a little closer, but yeah, composite output. It's awful. It was
always awful. >> How did this even qualify as fun,
>> bro? Frame rate is just a state of mind. >> I can't even tell where I'm supposed to
be going. >> Wrong way. Okay, >> I think I'm going to win.
>> Oh, I think you're going to win. All right. I'm literally still going the
wrong way. This is amazing. Where the hell am I supposed to be going?
>> You know what? I blame the system.
>> I was a lot less sold until I saw the
stock output of an N64 for the first time in a while. I don't know that
there's a ton of N64 games that I would feel the need to spend this kind of
money in order to reexperienced in in the best way that I could. And with
software emulation being as good as it is these days,
[sighs] if I don't care about that extra little
bit more perfection, that would probably be good enough for me. But there's no
denying for the folks that are after that.
It's pretty compelling. >> That is so much better.
>> Night and freaking day. I'm not going easy on you this time, though.
>> That sounds serious. >> Yeah. This is This is great watching.
>> Get out of here. No. No.
>> Oh >> We stay winning.
>> Did not finish. It doesn't even let me
finish. So, this looks a lot better. But it is worth noting that we could get a
way better output out of an original N64 with the right cables if we modded the
console, if we put the work into it. But
this was no work. and that was a marketkedly better gaming experience.
The question is just is it worth it to you or are you willing to settle for the
compromises of emulation or running the
original hardware? I can see why a lot of people are into it. The only weird
one for me is just that I don't know that there's a ton of games for the N64
that I feel hold up so well that I would
need to spend this kind of money on a console that's dedicated to playing them.
But your mileage may vary.