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Jace Hall
06-25-2020 at 11:00 AM


Should Twin Galaxies create a FPGA platform category, and then just have any game / platform EMU track that uses FPGA be created there? It would be pretty varied in terms of what gets listed but there would at least be a place for all FPGA EMU Games...

Suggestions?

The goal is to support FPGA but not create a ton of platforms / clutter.....

User comments (21)

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So, here's my first thought with that. With things like the MiSTer happening, we have a number of arcade games, and entire consoles, that are being done that way. And then we have the Analogue NES, SNES, and Genesis consoles. So if everything just went under a FPGA platform, you'd have the equivalent of a significant number of existing platforms all placed under this one, new platform. If this did take off, it seems it would become very unwieldly very quickly.


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This is still a split but I think most FPGA people would like a merge. Would the FPGA tracks allow real hardware as well?

As long as the FPGA is scout modernizing and including both FPGA and original then I think it would be good

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I'm still a fan of having minis or other licensed plug and plays, whatever clone/knockoff systems, and emu be included in the main platform. But I know that's an unpopular opinion.

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so, here's a visual reprise of an idea I've had before for how to manage EMU tracks. Create a "category" used to filter the tracks you're viewing. A dropdown on the game page. Like this:



And once you select, you only see tracks from that particular category:


In this case, all the tracks you see would be those marked as "FPGA" tracks. The category becomes a new "attribute" of the track, and stops being in the title.

I realize it's probably not an easy change, and would mean a lot of manual work assigning categories to existing tracks, editing names to clean it up, changing the track creation flow. But I feel a thorough design and implementation could be a much improved way to handle this AND solve the existing question of how to deal with EMU tracks.

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HAN

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Ideally, there should be a "master" leaderboard where scores/times of the same game all get grouped/compared against each other. I can't count how many times I've seen an amazing score done on a compilation disc or emulator that gets no mention when the original hardware/console "World Record" gets all kind of kudos. Scoring is scoring, not treating them as equals is gatekeeping - plain and simple.

Original hardware/emu/fpga/compilation track for Ghouls n Ghosts on speedrun.com: some emu, a couple on original hardware, most from Japan region rom, even the ps2 compilation disc - all in one place. Filter it if you want to see hardware only, but compare them all against each other:

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EVN

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"Platform" should just be variable on all tracks, the purists can filter out everything but real hardware if they want to.


The way we create new tracks for new platforms is unsustainable, how many compilations, mini consoles, mini arcade cabinets, emulators, fpgas etc do we wanna have going forward?

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i guess since we're all going all over the place i'll again add my refrain. make it a hierarchy. then "the hat" is happy that things are merged on the higher level and the purists are happy for the lower level, and jace is happy there isnt too much clutter.

while we'll alll disagree on best implementaion though can i suggest we also answer jace's question in the process? yes, give fpga a platform, but while you're at it, consider these suggestions on better ways to do it

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Fly

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What's FPGA?

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Quote Originally Posted by Fly

What's FPGA?

jrok is an example of fpga. not being a jerk but technical to explain, look it up. net result is while its "emulation" in the snese that one thing is "emulaitng" another it is not "emulation" in the sense we normally use the word. in theory (and in testing to best of my knowledge) fpga shows no differences from the real thing

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For arcade it should just be treated exactly like Arcade no need to create new tracks. It's getting really hard to keep arcade games running. For the most part you can't tell the difference, and I haven't run into any case where there has been a difference major enough to get all up in arms and stuff.

It's gonna happen to every piece of equipment, your gonna be able to get an FPGA replacement for it. I'd much rather play on an FPGA, they are reliable and they are cheaper in some cases than the real thing.

I'd say start allowing them into the real hardware tracks and not make any more. Keep an open document or wiki that tells what is what and have open discussions when an issue comes up and make a decision then. We have the ability to put so many data points, flags, registers, and notes on anything we do now that we can now undo anything that is done.

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I would definitely say that I don't think FPGA should be it's own platform. It'll be too messy and complicated to manage.

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Quote Originally Posted by HAN

Ideally, there should be a "master" leaderboard where scores/times of the same game all get grouped/compared against each other. I can't count how many times I've seen an amazing score done on a compilation disc or emulator that gets no mention when the original hardware/console "World Record" gets all kind of kudos. Scoring is scoring, not treating them as equals is gatekeeping - plain and simple.

Original hardware/emu/fpga/compilation track for Ghouls n Ghosts on speedrun.com: some emu, a couple on original hardware, most from Japan region rom, even the ps2 compilation disc - all in one place. Filter it if you want to see hardware only, but compare them all against each other:

I would really like it to be this way, it would save people ( Like myself ) subbing the same game across 3 tracks EMU, NTSC, PAL.

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I've made this suggestion before, and I'm not too sure how popular it was/is, but we currently have 5 categories: Arcade, NTSC, PAL, and SECAM categories (all require original hardware) and Emulation. Perhaps simply change the word "Emulation" to "all others", which would include emulation, clones, and FPGA, and literally anything else.

I'm up in the air about FPGA, though. Can a component that is functionally identical to original hardware be even considered "emulation"? Have any functionality variances been found in any FPGA set up? If not, I dont see any issue with updating "original hardware" to include new hardware that is functionally identical to the original, which emulators are not ... and it's not even close. We have confirmation that PAL, NTSC, SECAM, and emulators all have functional variance from each other, no matter how slight or profound. THAT'S WHY THEYRE CLASSIFIED DIFFERENTLY. I know for a fact that in certain unnamed competitions on another unnamed website, some players have openly admitted to playing PAL versions to exploit the timing variance while competing against mainly NTSC players. Just to clarify, there is nothing wrong with that, because it was not against the rules of those competitions, and nothing was stopping us NTSC players from playing the PAL version ourselves. Combining all categories into one, especially emulation submissions, would cause more problems than it would solve, because they're just not the same. If we combine all the different hardware configurations into one, we may as well just combine all platforms into one. I know ... a ludicrous proposition. EXACTLY.

If doing some sort of combine-all-into-one is being considered, I would hope that we change "emulation" into "all others", and then combine all others into "all others". If someone wants to whine and complain about one emulation having an advantage over another, they can simply play on original hardware then if they dont like the way the "all others" category works.

Just my opinion.

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My beliefs have always been 2 categories per platform. Original and Everything Else. No need to differentiate Super Nes Mini and Emu, it's all just NOT Original.

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FPGA is the same as original hardware in regard to clock speed, sound and resolution. If FPGA was separated I can see a big headache and lot of work needed especially for console and home computer games with so many people using everdrives and equivalents. The separate listings ignores the different arcade board revisions that exist for certain arcade games. Equipment in other competitions or sports don't get listed unless they are significantly different and give an advantage or disadvantage to complete the task (speed of vehicle is one example but no one lists the different shoes runners use in order to sprint the 100m).

Best way this late in the piece in my opinion is to count FPGA as original hardware, as it is presently done in console games. Of course list an emulation option for all tracks and have the master leaderboard as @HAN suggests. This would also bring TG in line with the speed running community that flatline the approach of playing games.

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HAN

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@Jace Hall - any more thoughts/movement on the implementation of FPGA here on TG?

I'm sure many people would really like to see the MiSTer and other FPGA hardware (such as Analogue's NT Mini/MegaSG/SuperNT, and retroUSB's AVS) gain acceptance into the competitive gaming scene.

More players having easier ways to access the games we play means better competition for years to come!

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Can someone please list all the FPGA platforms that they would like included?

I think we could create a FPGA platform and then have a selection choice of which specific implementation they played the game on.

Sort of like how we handle MAME versions.

Thoughts?

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HAN

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For me personally, there's no point in integrating FPGA into their own separate leaderboards.

Here's my reasoning - We're going to have a stellar performance on a game played on an Analogue NT Mini, for example...
someone does an amazing Don Flemenco KO time on the original Punch Out. Submitting on a leaderboard other than the NES leaderboard doesn't carry the same prestige and weighted points in TG's ESI system, but is identically as hard to do (skill-wise).

Most new and casual users are going to look up the NES / Famicom platform for leaderboards, and may not even know what an FPGA system is and to look there for highest known score. The same thing happens a lot when people look up arcade game records...they don't know to check the MAME leaderboards (or MARP) to see what the real best score is. Take any Capcom beat 'em up - before EVN beat my arcade submission, 3.6M was the "record" for the Alien vs Predator game. My score paled in comparison to Salim's 4.4M mame score and the MARP records; They deserved the recognition for AVP.

My vision and hope is all instances of the same game should be on the same leaderboard and carry the same ESI weight / prestige / recognition. If it doesn't, it just serves to confuse new members and further dilute the rankings. This isn't even taking into account that (at some point) the original hardware for many of these systems or arcade PCB's simply will be too hard to keep working...which is part of the reason FPGA exist - Accesibilty.

Sorry for the long-winded post... :)

- Pete

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Here is what I will say. If it's 100% accurate then why are there constant firmware updates to "fix" game errors?

From SegaSG:

- Chuck Rock CD is now working.
- Many CD fixes- NHL 94, Willy Beamish, and other games now work.

From SuperNT:

- Fixed Arabian Nights audio feedback issue.
- Fixed Tiny Toons Buster Busts Loose audio crash
- Fixed Batman Returns audio crash

These systems are NOT 100% accurate PERIOD so I don't want them mixed in with official legit systems.


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Quote Originally Posted by swaggers

Here is what I will say. If it's 100% accurate then why are there constant firmware updates to "fix" game errors?

From SegaSG:

- Chuck Rock CD is now working.
- Many CD fixes- NHL 94, Willy Beamish, and other games now work.

From SuperNT:

- Fixed Arabian Nights audio feedback issue.
- Fixed Tiny Toons Buster Busts Loose audio crash
- Fixed Batman Returns audio crash

These systems are NOT 100% accurate PERIOD so I don't want them mixed in with official legit systems.



this interesting. in addition to your point, since the point here is tgsap this raises another point. The way tgsap works, if you accept, and years later a problem is found, and theres a dispute, then the accepters lose their much coveted cred. remember days of third party video ? alot of people were afraid the video would some day be removed and so feared voting leading to huge back ups. for those who did vote, and had no fear, sure enough are now seeing cred hits and we get some drama there. the same could happen with this

gratned the stuff you listed is disadvantages so they dont perfectly back up my point, but it opens the possilbity an advantageous difference exists, people will approve, it will be discovered, cred will be hit, and then going forward everyone abstains on these. that could get ugly and probably not something thats good if the goal is to avoid drama

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