Analogue 3D Gets Save States: You Can Now Pause and Resume Any N64 Game

Analogue has released an update for its 3D console—a modern recreation of the classic Nintendo 64—that adds a major convenience feature: universal save states. This means you can now save your progress at any moment in any of the 900+ N64 games, without relying on the old battery backup systems that games originally used.

How to Use It

The new "Memories" feature lets you freeze your game at any point and come back to it later. If you're using modern 8BitDo controllers, you hold the Home button and press D-Pad Up. If you're using original N64 controllers, you hold Z and Start, then press C-Up. Either way, your game state saves instantly.

The original N64 had no way to save mid-game unless the cartridge had a built-in battery that stored your progress—and those batteries have died in many old cartridges. Save states solve this problem by creating a digital snapshot of exactly where you are in a game, letting you pick up right where you left off.

Why This Is Tricky

The Analogue 3D doesn't run N64 games through software emulation like an old PC emulator would. Instead, it recreates the actual N64 hardware using FPGA technology—think of it as building the real machine in silicon rather than imitating it in software. This approach means games run with perfect accuracy, but it also makes save states much harder to implement. The console has to photograph the entire state of the recreated hardware—its graphics processor, sound processor, and memory systems—all at once.

The N64 also used a confusing variety of different storage methods depending on the game. Some games stored saves inside the cartridge itself. Others used a separate Controller Pak memory card. Early games had no save system at all. Getting save states to work reliably across all 900+ games required careful engineering.

How It Actually Works

The update relies on improvements made in earlier firmware versions that automatically recognize which cartridge is plugged in. The system can even tell when a cartridge changes its internal identification code—something that happens with some homebrew games or flash carts that hold multiple ROMs. Because the console knows exactly what game is running, it can store each save state in the right place and make sure saves don't get mixed up between different games.

What This Means

From a technical standpoint, this is a significant achievement. The Analogue 3D has managed to combine something you'd expect from a modern emulator—the ability to save and load at any point—with the circuit-for-circuit accuracy of the original hardware. It's worth noting that other retro gaming systems have added save states over the years, but few have done it while maintaining the level of accuracy that the Analogue 3D aims for.

Over the decades of covering technology, I've seen this pattern repeat across console generations: companies that make preservation hardware eventually add modern conveniences on top of original designs. The balance between staying true to the original and making the experience actually practical is always the hard part. This update shows it's possible to do both.

Games like Paper Mario and Mario Party, which used completely different save systems, now work the same way—you just hit the save button combination and move on. Even games that originally had no save function at all, like arcade-style titles from the early 1990s, finally get a practical way to preserve your progress.