For our project, we’re building SyncNES, a system that brings the classic 1980s Nintendo experience into the modern era. Most people today play old games using “emulators” (software on a PC that mimics a console), but these often feel slightly “off” because of tiny delays or glitches. We’re taking a different approach by using a specialized chip called an FPGA to literally rebuild the internal circuitry of the original Nintendo Entertainment System from scratch. It’s essentially a “digital recreation” of the actual hardware, meaning the games will run exactly as they did thirty years ago, with perfect timing and no software lag.
What makes our project unique is adding a feature the original NES never had: remote online multiplayer. Usually, to play a two-player game, you and your friend have to be sitting on the same couch plugged into the same box. We are designing a way for two of our custom-built consoles to “talk” to each other over the internet. Our goal is to synchronize these two machines so perfectly that you can play with someone across the country without feeling any frustrating “input lag.” It’s about taking the nostalgia of retro gaming and combining it with modern networking to make classic games more accessible and social than ever before.