Jeremy Parish hands-on w/ Polymega

[Nintendork666]

Hands On: Polymega Is Shaping Up To Be The Ultimate All-In-One Retro Emulation Box (Jeremy Parish)

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2019/ ... lation_box

The classic-gaming-as-viable-business landscape looks wildly different from its form a decade ago. Where retrogaming fans once had to make do with Nintendo's haphazard Virtual Console release schedule and an occasional dribble of retro compilations, today we have something approaching an embarrassment of riches: Mini-arcade cabinets of all sizes; Arcade Archives; a revival of massive anthologies produced to higher standards than in previous generations; brand-new games for vintage consoles; and painstakingly recreated high-end facsimiles of the old machines themselves. Whether you want to throw together a cheap piracy box to play ill-gotten NES ROMs or construct a bespoke retro corner of original hardware adapted to run on modern televisions, the business of old games has become nearly as lively a facet of the industry as making new ones.

Here is a video of the Polymega running Die Hard Arcade for Saturn...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEW772Eb7g8

[marurun]

Well, Polymega is working with emulator devs to improve performance and compatibility. And a Pi is not going to emulate 32-bit stuff. I have also heard that Pi setups have lots of lag. Sure, some lag comes from screens, but having fast IO to the controllers is also key. Pi setups are apparently somewhat notorious for being laggy.

[bmoc]

Would be interesting to know what is in it exactly; besides the slots is it worth getting over a raspberry pi for example?

Here are the tech specs from their website. Definitely more horsepower than a Pi.

Processor: Intel Coffee Lake S Series Processor
Memory: 4GB DDR4 RAM
Connectivity: HDMI, 802.11G WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0, USB 2.0, Polymega™ Expansion Bus
On-board Storage: 32GB eMMC Flash Memory
Expansion Storage: M.2 2280 SSD up to 2TB, SDXC Compatible Micro SD port up to 1TB.
Optical Drive: 8X CD/DVD Slot-in Optical Disc Drive

It's worth noting that there are some games that won't load (below) in that Saturn emulator, and that there are various minor issues with the audio in some games compared to the real console (in music tracks there are sometimes pitch, vibrato and slide errors as well as somewhat different volume levels and stereo mixing; IIRC it's pretty noticeable in Sakura Taisen and Shining Force 3 for example). But maybe it'll be improved on and patched over time.

They are touting 99% Sega Saturn compatibility. I really doubt they have extensively tested every Sega Saturn game from all three regions. That's well over 1500 games. You can also add King of Fighters 95 and Ultraman to the incompatibility list because they require a ROM cart that contains in-game assets. That said, they are up front about relying on early adopters to identify problems so they can patch them. https://twitter.com/polymegaHQ/status/1 ... 7504467968

[Dikdikvandik]

Polymega lost me when they went after Analog in their now infamous Twitter bitch fit.

Took the money that was GOING to go to getting a Polymega and I bought a Japanese PS2.

[prfsnl_gmr]

This will be worth it to me if I can put my Saturn games on a hard drive and play them on a HDTV. That feature excites me.

This sounds a bit like the RetroFreak. Bone has one of those, and it is pretty awesome.

[bmoc]

Polymega lost me when they went after Analog in their now infamous Twitter bitch fit.

To be fair, Analogue started that mess by throwing shade at Polymega. Polymega should have absolutely taken the high road and let it go though. Thankfully, they seem to have course corrected their social media presence since that debacle. For the past few weeks, they've been behaving professionally and positively engaging with the community. Even when db electronics went after them for "faking" their composite filter, they didn't get snarky - they just posted proof that it was untrue.

[Forlorn Drifter]

I'm on the fence. I like the idea, but now that it's software emulation I'm just waiting to see how it is when it comes out. I'm also waiting on the assumed hacking scene. I'd go full on board if this thing included PS2 or Xbox, but since they're so hard to emulate, I have to consider if PS1 and Saturn are worth it to me.

[bmoc]

I'd never fault anyone for a wait-and-see approach especially from an unproven company. However, it has always been software emulation at its core. The FPGA that was removed from the modules was just for reading carts in real time and accessing any special chips like the Super FX. Essentially it was the crux of their "hybrid emulation" technique that they originally want to go with.

[Forlorn Drifter]

I'd never fault anyone for a wait-and-see approach especially from an unproven company. However, it has always been software emulation at its core. The FPGA that was removed from the modules was just for reading carts in real time and accessing any special chips like the Super FX. Essentially it was the crux of their "hybrid emulation" technique that they originally want to go with.

Didn't realize that, not so bad then. Looking at the specs too, I think this might be a good candidate for the hacking scene. That processor should handle GameCube, and maybe even PS2. (My computer is close in processor and can handle them.) Niw in fully interested, though still wait and see.