The ULTIMATE Retro Gaming Experience - Analogue Nt Mini Review
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,546 words · ~7 min read
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hi my name is Luke I'm addicted to Retro games it all
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started when I was about 10 my brother and I did chores around the house for
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cash until we saved up enough money for mom to buy us a Super Nintendo off some
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creepy dude that I was scared of at the time ever since then I've been hooked
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and I don't just play the games I read
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books about them I collect the figurines of the
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characters I just can't
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stop I even brought my obsession to work
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fortunately for me my job's really cool and that's okay here so today I get to
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check out the analog NT mini Beyond being the most beautifully crafted piece
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of console Hardware that I have ever laid my hands on it's got amazing under
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the hood capabilities too with a 1080p capable HDMI out and an RGB all-in-one
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output for NES and famicom games and it can be yours for
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$4.49 that's uh
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$449
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Zotac Magnus en10 mini gaming PC is VR
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and AAA gaming ready check it out at the link in the video
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description everything about this is the Cadillac experience this is the most
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comprehensive IO setup I could imagine for a NES or a famicom you've got all
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the obvious stuff power button power input whatever but most so the rest of
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this is going to look pretty exotic there are two thoughtfully padded
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cartridge slots on the top that allow both the nests and famicom games from
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any region to be played natively without any form of adapters on the front you'll
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find a whopping four console inputs for the handful of games that can take
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advantage of this and moving around to the back there's a USB charging port for
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the included low latency wireless controller that can be used to power
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this system on for a surprisingly modern feeling experience the SD card slot can
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be used for all kinds of fun more on that later then moving back around the
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back we find a famicom expansion Port helpfully labeled in Japanese for
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compatibility with obscure accessories like the famicom disc system and what it
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even has a mic Jack for the tiny number
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of famicom games that could actually use a microphone fun fact Wind Waker was not
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the first Zelda game to pull this off
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audio outputs are standard but video is another story you get this analog output
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Port that can be adapted with a breakout cable to pretty much anything you could
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want and it has native HDMI which is much more challenging to do properly
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than you might think more on that later which leads us finally to the internals
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conveniently enjoyable through the window in the bottom of the unit an odd
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choice but nerds will like it I like it it's actually on the other other side of
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this PCB where you find the heart and soul of the system the Altera Cyclone 5
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fpga Hardware which has been custom configured by an electrical engineer
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with over 5,000 hours of experience
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re-engineering fpga systems for absolute
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Ness accuracy this is incredibly
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important and this is what you are paying for the Tim mini is not some
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random emulation box in fact it's not an
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emulation box at all instead of writing a bunch of software code to fake the
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functionality of Nintendo's original Hardware everything is done in HDL or
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Hardware definition language This Is How They achieved an identical experience to
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the original Ness 100% compatibility 100% accuracy zero additional lag but is
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it actually solid I threw everything that I had at it and experienced no
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issues whatsoever that weren't caused by my Dusty old carts this is not the
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experience that I've had with other off off brand retro systems that I've tried
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and I do acknowledge that I don't have every game on Earth but I couldn't find
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a single instance of anyone online having any issues either there's even a
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new game that came out like not that long ago why people are still making
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games for nest I don't know but it works it uses all four controller ports it's
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all fine but back to the NT mini how can an HDMI output claimed to be faithful to
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the original experience well this is not your dad's HDMI output or if your dad
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had one I guess it would have been but anyways if you experience lag it's your
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TV or monitor there is no external converter to add latency the HDMI
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transmitter is topnotch and the settings menu has extensive color audio and scan
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line tweaks for nerds and I know you
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could save a buck by running the majority of these games on something
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like a Raspberry p but if you're a purist this is reference quality which
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is hard to achieve without lugging it a CRT around your house like I do the
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anti- mini is objectively better than emulation and functionally better than
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even the original console which brings us back to that SD card slot the entt
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mini has been jailbroken their words not mine this
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allows you to dump cartridges you own into ROM files directly on that SD card
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and even play ROMs right off of it without using emulation you can use save
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states and run save files though I will
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judge you just a little you should even be able to use it to load additional
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fpga cores then with controller and
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cartridge adapters play other retro games on a similar Hardware level like
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Sega Master System games Game Gear Kika Vision Game Boy Game Boy Color Atari
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2600 Atari 7800 Intel Vision Odyssey 2 Adventure Vision supervision RCA Studio
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2 and more there's like 20 plus of them
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and then on top of that you've got an NSF player for Tunes a built-in Game
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Genie if you want to screw around and an extensive settings menu that would have
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merited its own entire video If I had my way but this video is near ending and it
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is conclusion time there are many other
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Solutions most of them cheaper some of them I've mentioned already others like
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the frame Meister low latency analog to digital converter and upscaler that I
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haven't and there are pros and cons to
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all I don't plan to sell my frame Meister because it's still useful for
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other consoles like the snash PS1 or even Xbox 360 and I also don't own this
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this is Works frame meister's mind but this NT mini in my humble opinion is the
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best way to play games that will be supported by kev's fpga core releases it
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delivers everything from a reference to a highly customizable experience and
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does it in a compact beautiful package that will look great in your man cave
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just add friends and beer assuming you have any money left left over for beer
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or friends freshbooks is the accounting
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software for small businesses and
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Freelancers it's cloud-based so you can always get at it meaning that all those
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tools it has expense tracking hour
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tracking the ability to create and send professionall look invoices in less than
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30 seconds are always at your fingertips
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it's also designed for the way that you work so you can accept payments on your
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terms things like accepting deposits are easily handled through freshbooks and
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being able to send out an invoice and see when the client has seen your
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invoice puts an end to the bull stuff
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guessing games of like oh yeah I didn't see that I'll pay you uh you know later
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it's all about getting paid and getting paid the right amount at the right time
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and with freshbooks you can do that so head to freshbooks.com techtips and
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enter techtips in the how you've heard about us section we've got it linked
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below thanks for watching guys this video sucked you know what to do if it
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was awesome get subscribed hit the like button or even check out the link for
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where to buy stuff on Amazon I don't know if this is on Amazon um but you can
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buy other things on Amazon if you would like also down there if you're like I
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must buy things immediately we have our shirts link you can buy this shirt down
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there that would be pretty cool if you want to see another video click this one
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which is the link to the analog and 8bit controller video which is like this
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thing literally right here it comes in the box when you buy the NT mini you get
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it so if you're interested in buy the NTV you might as well watch that video so you see the other thing that you get
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in the box that a lot of words to explain that you should watch a
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controller video see you next time