The Future in Review
The first review of the eagerly anticipated Analogue 3D is here, and it’s by none other than Modern Vintage Gamer. Below are some points he goes over. Please watch his video for a full, in-depth review of this Nintendo 64 recreation.
Initial Impressions & Display
- The Analogue 3D is an excellent FPGA recreation of the Nintendo 64, but Modern Vintage Gamer notes it is not perfect and has a few notable issues.
- The system runs games at their native internal resolution (typically 320×240), not an internal resolution upscale.
- The advertised 4K resolution means the source image is scaled up 10x for 4K devices, providing a very clean HDMI out.
Hardware, Peripherals, and Compatibility
- The console has a sleek form factor and includes four standard N64 controller ports.
- It has an SD card slot, USB-C power, a standard USB connector, and HDMI out (up to 4K at 60fps with HDR).
- The Analogue 3D has built-in Expansion Pack support which can be toggled on or off.
- It supports standard N64 peripherals like controller packs and memory packs.
- The console supports PAL, NTSC, and Japanese region games. MVG tested over 20 original cartridges of various regions and had no compatibility issues.
- Controller Note: While the 8BitDo N64 controller is supported, MVG found the analog stick unsuitable for precision-based games like Perfect Dark and GoldenEye.
Core Features and Customization
- The device has a basic user interface typical of Analogue products.
- You must have the original cartridge connected to launch a game; games are not dumped or played from the SD card alone.
- Per-Game Configuration Settings are a standout feature:
- Display settings allow you to disable anti-aliasing for a sharper image.
- You can apply CRT masks to recreate professional-grade monitors like the Sony BVM and PVM, or use a clean image with integer scaling.
- Settings are saved per game so you don’t have to readjust them.
Overclocking (The Best Feature)
- Overclocking is described by MVG as the single most transformative feature on the device, helping alleviate the severe frame rate issues common in N64 games.
- It successfully smooths out performance in games like Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness in high-res mode.
- Games like Perfect Dark 64 and GoldenEye run much better than on original hardware with overclocking enabled.
- Caveats: Enabling the extreme option can cause crashing, and in games like Quake 2, it can make the game run too fast without improving the frame rate, requiring individual testing.
Major Issues and Conclusion
- Flash Cartridge Support is Temperamental: This is considered the biggest issue and a potential dealbreaker for some users.
- Official Everdrives (V2.5 and X5) did not work for MVG during testing.
- Only the Kao Summer Cart 64 was detected and ran mostly fine, but still had occasional crashes.
- Modern Vintage Gamer experienced issues with the introduction FMV sequence in Resident Evil 2, where the sound would desync and the video would freeze approximately one out of five times.
- ROM hacks and homebrew were tested by MVG and ran without issues.
- Conclusion: The Analogue 3D is a great system, and the display features and overclocking are excellent. However, MVG states that the poor flash cart support makes it difficult to recommend widely at this time.
You can watch the full review in the video below:
Would have been nice if he had tested the games that have known issues on MiSTer to see if they run on it better. Stuff like the Madden games that have random exploding polygons on the player models. That’s the kind of testing I’m interested in.
Personally, I’d love to do side by side with MiSTer and an actual N64. I just need a 3D 🤣
Is your N64 modded in any way? And is it PAL or NTSC based?
Thus far reviews have been favorable for the most part, nice! That weave interlacing issue is being worked on apparently and the fact that most (but not all) flashcarts don’t work is unfortunate but in the end the console was meant to play original carts which thus far it seems to do very well. All of the issues thus far can be resolved by firmware updates it seems, if not by Analogue then hopefully by Krikkz. The Pocket on release was not the Pocket as it is today, so let’s see where the 3D ends up.
Now it’s up to ModRetro with the M64, but they kept quiet so they could see what the 3D does well and does not…yet.
No having full flash cart support is deffo a big bummer.
To a certain extent it is, but at the same time the console is meant for use with original carts. I haven’t seen a review yet where multiple modern aftermarket carts were tested. Except for maybe Xeno Crisis, but that one worked.
I have seen successful tests with homebrew and patched games on (I think) a SummerCart though.
The main thing that’s the issue with the SummerCart is that some games have issues if they rely on the controllerpack in a certain way and the fact that the nature of a flashcart in general (loading multiple games from a UI on a single cart) does not work with the current 3D functionality of saving settings on a game by game basis as the 3D sees the SummerCart as a single game. Let’s see where it all goes.
The biggest bummer for me is that I didn’t get my pre-order in when the 3D was available to pre-order 😉
I really want one now, I already have both (what is claimed to be) supported controllers and a fully loaded SummerCart ready to go 😉
By the way, GameSack got some Everdrives working after they were downgraded to an older firmware version.