It's fair to say that FPGA hardware has revolutionised the way we play retro games. By replicating the performance of classic platforms on a hardware rather than software level, FPGA allows for a higher degree of accuracy and the lowest latency possible – two things that retro gaming purists value.
FPGA consoles like the Super Nt allow SNES fans to play their original cartridges with the benefit of FPGA accuracy, while the FPGA-based MiSTer and Analogue Pocket both offer SNES support. However, smaller devices – like the SNES Classic Edition – use software-based emulation and, therefore, aren't seen as quite as faithful by hardcore players.
If you're looking for a compact FPGA solution, then you might want to keep an eye on SNESTang, a new venture which uses Sipeed's Tang Primer 25K FPGA.
It's still very much a work in progress, but it's already looking promising.
"This plays about half of the top 50 SNES games in my test," says creator nand2mario. "I want to get this out first as I’ve been debugging with test roms with sources. Next, I need to decompile and debug those non-working games. So it’ll take some time."