"Impossible" N64 MiSTer Core Is Making Impressive Progress

The way people always talk about FPGA being like the holy grail of emulation accuracy, I guess I always thought it would be more of an all-or-nothing kind of affair. If it's so possible to have a running FPGA emulator with glitches all over the place, I'm not sure what the benefit is supposed to be. Does FPGA have a similar issue to software emulation where people write code to make some games work properly which then breaks compatibility for other games since it's not real cycle-accurate emulation but just good-enough approximation?
Don't get me wrong, I'm excited to see this development. Just a little surprised at what I'm seeing. If FPGA isn't about guaranteed accuracy then what is it about?

@N64-ROX beats me, but I too was curious so I asked the ever-lower-quality-than-yesterday GPT-4 about it:

### Quick Take:
FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Array) emulation aims for hardware-level accuracy, but it's not a magic bullet. It can still have glitches and issues. Unlike software emulation, which often uses hacks to make specific games work, FPGA aims for cycle-accurate emulation. However, achieving that is hard and time-consuming.

### The Deets:

#### What's FPGA Emulation?
FPGA is about mimicking the original hardware as closely as possible. It's not just code running on a general-purpose CPU; it's a reconfigurable chip that can emulate the actual circuits of the original hardware. This should, in theory, make it super accurate.

#### Why Glitches?
1. **Complexity:** Old consoles like the N64 are complex machines. Mimicking every aspect perfectly is tough.
2. **Incomplete Info:** Sometimes, the exact workings of the original hardware aren't fully known.
3. **Development Time:** It takes a lot of time to perfect FPGA cores.

#### Software vs. FPGA
Software emulators often use "hacks" or game-specific fixes. These can make one game work well but break another. FPGA aims to avoid this by being as hardware-accurate as possible. But, if the FPGA core isn't perfect, you'll get glitches.

#### So, What's the Benefit?
1. **Potential for Higher Accuracy:** When done right, it's the closest you can get to the real thing.
2. **Low Latency:** Hardware-level emulation often has lower input lag.
3. **Versatility:** One FPGA device can emulate multiple systems.

#### Why the Hype?
FPGA is seen as the "holy grail" because it has the potential for near-perfect emulation. But getting there is a journey, and the road can be bumpy.

So yeah, FPGA is cool but not infallible. It's a work in progress, like any tech. The glitches you're seeing are part of the growing pains.

I follow some Chanals on Youtube and it is crazy bow fast the Core Development is rolling.

@N64-ROX

FPGA IS the holy Grale, as it is the same as someone would manufacture a Clone CPU of the target Console but with additional modern Hardware and Features (HDMI, Overlay, USB, Network Cards).

The Problem with the Chip of the Mister is, that it is believed that it doesn't have enough Transistors that can mimik all of the N64 Architecture, so literally a physical Limit.

But the Steps done until now are very incredible, as it was thought that it will be never possible to even Emulate per Software the N64.
Even if it doesn't fits on the Mister CPU, other FPGA CPUs will take use of the Work and mimik the N64 accurate.

This work does not only preserve how older Consoles worked, it also saves you Money.
Getting a RGB Mod for the N64 is very pricey, the Everdrives and similiar have gotten also very pricey, new Controllers are also a Thing.

A Mister has everything in it and you can use your existing Controllers

The PSX core especially is less of a landmark when the PS3 slim is already a perfect modern PS1 and the Vita is a flawless portable PS1. With the N64 being a totally different beast than any other console with all that custom microcode, I'll be impressed when they have huge chunks of the games running at 100% accuracy. Until then it's all baby steps. But I'd be as stoked as anyone to be able to play Body Harvest flawlessly outside of the original console on a modern display. And maybe in ten years Analogue will make their Ultra NT or whatever.

@dconstantine thanks, it's like you put my entire comment in there!

@Azuris thanks, yeah I agree that this is incredible. I will definitely buy an FPGA box for this at some point.
Another thing which surprised me about this news is that, I thought the N64 chips were too much of a black box for hardware emulation. Looks like some real breakthroughs have been made.