The Analogue3D is finally here. It's real. It's hooked up to my 65" 4K television right now. And if you're as excited as the N64 kid on Christmas morning 1996, you probably want me to stop with this labored introduction and get right into telling you all about this FPGA-powered modern Nintendo 64. Is it really 4K? Are the scanlines as good as we'd hoped? How's the lag? Is Donkey Kong 64 really as bad as people say?
The answer is yes, yes, great, and of course not, DK64 rules. Before I break down what makes this the latest must-have retro gaming hardware from the fine folks at Analogue, let's take a look at what you can expect when it arrives at your door.
Analogue3D: What's In the Box
Since this is a premium retro gaming product, it comes in a premium box, the sort of solid cardboard with crisp corners and tight tolerances you've come to expect from your premium tech. Inside the box is the Analogue3D itself, a 4K HDMI cable, 30W USB-C plug, and a 16GB SD card with the Analogue's 3Dos preinstalled.
For the review, however, I was also sent four of 8Bitdo's Bluetooth 64 Controllers, a copy of Super Mario 64 (which I already have) and a copy of GoldenEye (which I also already have).
The box also included a pair of tiny game cartridge cleaners. They're essentially Magic Erasers, with the instructions to give the pins on your carts a nice little swipe before you plug them into the Analogue3D. They're good for 2-3 uses, supposedly, but that didn't account for someone like me, who bought the world's most disgusting copy of Donkey Kong 64 from the Shop Goodwill online auction site.
The cartridge cleaner was disgusting after just one swipe. Honestly, if Analogue sold these in different sizes for different cartridges I would buy them in bulk. So much easier than the cotton-swab and alcohol method I've been using for years.
Analogue3D: Design and Features
In addition to making life easier on retro gamers who want to play their original cartridges on modern equipment, Analogue has made a name for itself through its gorgeous industrial design. The aluminum Analogue Pocket is one of the coolest pieces of retro gaming equipment out there, and one of the most visually appealing, as well.
Analogue has made a name for itself through its gorgeous industrial designThe Analogue3D isn't made of a block of milled aircraft aluminum. At least, not yet, I'm sure that one's coming next year. Instead it's made of a very solid, high quality plastic. The design borrows heavily from the lines of the original Nintendo 64 but in a modern, more subdued profile. It immediately triggers a familiar nostalgia while also fitting in with a modern gaming setup. It's quite lovely, actually. I have the black version, but there's also a grey version, and as of this writing, neither one is available. Preorders sold out pretty damn quickly.
There are four controller ports along the front, capable of handling any N64 controller you can imagine. Well, almost. The Nintendo Switch Online N64 controller doesn't pair with the Analogue3D, which isn't a huge problem since I have my OG Atomic Purple corded controller along with the aforementioned four 8bitdo 64 Controllers. Analogue says any original Nintendo 64 controller will work. The same holds true for Nintendo 64 accessories like Rumble Paks.
Stuff like the Memory Pak and the Nintendo 64 Expansion Pak (required on the original N64 to play games like DK64 and Star Fox 64) are built into the hardware, so you don't need them anymore. The original Expansion Pak for the N64 doubled the N64's onboard RAM to a whopping 8MB, and the Analogue3D gives you the option to toggle it on or off for compatible games, if you want to experience the blistering power of 100% more RAM.
Bluetooth controllers are a snap to sync, but it's not immediately apparent how to do so unless you check the manual. The LED on the front that displays power and error codes also activates Bluetooth pairing with a quick press. Another small but excellent detail I love here is each controller port has an LED on it that lights up when you've paired a controller, so you can see instantly who's geared up for a round or seventy of GoldenEye multiplayer.
Another feature Analogue is touting is the introduction of its 3Dos, a modification of its existing AnalogueOS. It tracks your game library, so every time you plug in a cart, the Analogue3D recognizes it, gives you basic information about it, and keeps track of it in the Library part of the interface. It also supports custom artwork, if you so desire, although personally that's not a feature I see myself ever taking advantage of.
Every time you plug in a cart, the Analogue3D recognizes it.Where things really open up is the rest of the interface, allowing you to adjust settings at a level that's equal parts daunting and exciting. The part of my brain that loves to tinker and fine-tune is awash in dopamine inside of these menus. Some of the hardware menus, specifically the "experimental" features like overclocking, are only available from the home screen, while others, like display settings, can be adjusted on the fly.
Honestly there are too many options to list here, so I'll go over the biggest ones. First of all, the overclocking feature has four different settings: auto, "Enhanced" for RAM enhancement, "Enhanced+" for RAM and video overclock, and "Unleashed" which is RAM, video, and CPU overclocking. These features are experimental and could end up messing with the gameplay on certain games that rely on the clockspeed for certain events. I didn't run into that, though, and gladly cranked it to Unleashed to play Donkey Kong 64. This resulted in smoother gameplay, but not the giant jump I was hoping for. It's definitely something that's going to depend entirely on the individual games and I hope someone out there in the retro community puts together some sort of definitive list.
Oh, and if you'd prefer to just play N64 games like you remember, you can toggle "force original hardware" to "on" and party like it's 1996.
Most of the display features can be accessed from the in-game menu or on the home screen. On the home screen, pressing the R button gives you Display options to output in 4K or 1080p, with both options available in 60Hz (for NTSC) or 50Hz (for PAL). The Auto Low Latency option in this menu sets your display to do exactly what the name says: low latency. Finally, you can toggle HDR on or off.
The Display Mode menu is where things get wild. This is where all those gorgeous filters live, and if you thought it was going to be as easy as an on/off toggle for scanlines, you have wildly underestimated the Analogue3D. Right now, there are five separate submenus for five separate display modes: BVM, PVM, CRT, Scanlines, and Clean. The BVM and PVM options give you a reasonable approximation of what it's like playing N64 on a professional monitor, the kind all those TV stations threw out or gave away for free when they switched to digital. The CRT version will look familiar to pretty much everyone, and the Scanlines option is kind of like CRT-lite. Clean removes all filters and gives you all the sharp pixel edges that can fit on your 4K display.
The Display Mode menu is where things get wild.Inside each display option is a menu further letting you tweak how you want your games to look. There are separate adjustments for horizontal and vertical beam convergence. This is getting into real CRT-enthusiast territory now, and it's way over my head. I don't notice a major difference when I make adjustments to these settings, but I know there are people out there who have encyclopedic knowledge levels of how cathode ray tubes work, and for those folks, this is just another awesome option to tweak things to their exact specifications.
You can also turn Edge Overshoot on or off, pick Soft or Hard for the Edge Hardness, adjust the Image Size and even Image Fit. Image Fit has three settings: Original, Stretch, and Cinema Zoom. Stretch will instantly transport you back to that heartbreaking day in 2008 or so when you first plugged your trusty old N64 into your shiny new HDTV. The image is pulled to fit the 16:9 aspect ratio and looks pretty bad. Not because the Analogue3D is failing, but just because it's all weird and stretchy.
However, I did find with the right combination of Cinema Zoom and Integer+ image size, you can force a pretty decent 16:9 experience on your display without losing out on the aspect ratio. It's pretty neat to see these old games in widescreen, but since almost all of the important menus and things like score and lifebar are designed with 4:3 in mind, it's not an ideal way to play. I honestly think I could get used to it though.
Clean removes all filters and gives you just the graphics with not two, not three, but FOUR different interpolation algorithms. Hell yes, finally. I'm being glib, because these are actually kind of important in ways I'll get to later.
You can pick from a range of five different sharpness options here, from Very Soft to Very Sharp. I found Very Soft to be too soft for my liking, almost smeared, but Very Sharp is exceedingly crisp. The Goldilocks zone for me is the Sharp setting, giving just enough of an edge to look great without being distracting.
All of these settings are going to be highly subjective. Further, they're also deeply dependent on the games themselves. I found what looks good to me in GoldenEye doesn't do the trick in F-Zero X. Thankfully you can make these adjustments on a per-game basis, so once you dial in your preferred settings, you don't need to revisit them when you pop in another cart.
Analogue3D Performance
The promise of the Analogue3D is it allows you to play your original games as you remember them and I'm happy to say it almost nails it. My living room TV is a 3 year-old TCL 5-series, a fine budget pick that has served me well, but isn't making anyone's "Top 4K TVs for Gaming" lists. In spite of my average TV, lag wasn't a noticeable problem for me at all.
Although even with the best gaming display around, it's still not going to match the instantaneous response you get with a CRT – but it's damn admirable and much better than the emulation on Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pass.
My very unscientific test was to see if there was a noticeable difference between pushing "jump" in Super Mario 64 on the Analogue3D and then recreating it on the Nintendo Switch emulation. It's barely there, but it's there.
Where the responsiveness really shines, however, is in F-Zero X. First of all, the NSO emulated version doesn't respond or perform well at all. It's "good enough," but I find F-Zero X on NSO to be unplayable. Whether it's the borked frame rate, input lag, or some combination of both, I was never able to enjoy it on Nintendo's service.
Where the responsiveness really shines, however, is in F-Zero X.But on the Analogue3D, it's an absolute pleasure. It runs as smoothly as you remember, and I was actually able to control my racer competently and actually win the Jack Cup. I found this task impossible on NSO, and competing via the Analogue3D on my 65" screen and having it look and run as good as it does is an absolute thrill.
Every other game I tested, from Donkey Kong 64 to Super Mario 64, Jet Force Gemini to Wrestlemania 2000, looked and felt awesome once I was able to dial in all the display settings to my liking. In a lot of ways, the Analogue3D might end up being a menace to my wallet because now I really want to fill up my collection even more.
Now, it's extremely important for me to point out that visual excellence is, once again, extremely subjective. The Analogue3D lets you experience Nintendo 64 games in a way you've never experienced them before, with so many options and tweaks to get it just how you like. But at the end of the day, N64 games will always look like N64 games. And while it's a pain in the neck, games designed with CRT limitations in mind will always look better on a CRT.
Taking those graphics and giving them the 4K treatment ends up losing something in the translation. This isn't a knock against the Analogue3D, but you can use it to play games on screens with dimensions and resolutions the original designers never even imagined. Hell, the laws of physics didn't allow for CRT televisions to come near to what most of us have now in our living rooms.
There's a certain charm I've warmed to for the early days of 3D graphics. The weird math that made the PS1 polygons look uneven and out of place, and the simplicity of the low-poly Mario face at the beginning of Super Mario 64 is an aesthetic I absolutely love. And as much of a vibe as early 3D is, it doesn't have the lasting charm of the pixel art of the 8- and 16-bit eras. Playing these classics in the best possible, modern way definitely exposes how rudimentary those days were.
Combing
The scanline filters do an excellent job approximating the look of an original, analog tube display, but one problem I ran into on some N64 games is noticeable combing. Initially, I didn't see it at all as I was playing games with the filters turned on. It wasn't until I tried capturing video using the Clean display mode that I first caught it. It's especially noticeable during the dancing N64 logo at the start of Donkey Kong 64. The rotating Rare logo also shows these artifacts. After Clean mode made me acutely aware of the issue, I went back to check again with the filters on and yep, it's there, it's just much more difficult to notice.
If you don't know what combing is, you've almost certainly seen it on home video tapes someone digitized. Basically every other line is slightly mismatched, so you get a "comb" effect, especially on the edges of an on-screen object.
That said, with the filters turned on, you might not even notice it at all. And it's not ever-present: I haven't had it show up during gameplay in a way that ruined the experience. It's also not noticeable on smaller displays. Or even in every game.
If you're trying to use the Analogue3D as your go-to device to capture or stream N64 carts, it might be an issue. If you're using your Analogue3D to revisit your library of classic games on your modern TV, it's barely worth mentioning. Still, it's the only real complaint I have on what's otherwise an excellent machine.
Connexion
