EMULATOR??! Watch yourself in an FPGA forum there lad... hah
The differences for me, is the fact that it fits into an original breadbin C64 case, and uses it's keyboard. So it's form factor is exactly the same as the C64 I had growing up. It has a real cartridge port as well as a user port, built in ethernet and hdmi, as well as joystick ports and rgb output. It also sports dual sockets for putting in real sid chips. So, real stereo sid and the possibility of up to eight sids, with the built in FPGA versions of the sid chip implemented in the fpga. (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhz3vHYX0E0 )
Hrm what else.. a built in FTP Server, so you can send files right over to the machine - usb thumb drive support, true drive emulation for 1541, 1581 etc. Software IEC - ability to stream low latency video and audio to any device on your local network, built in pal / ntsc mode. Turbo control - boost cpu speed for certain games. A built in SID Player, reading files from a usb thumb drive... & The list goes on.
Mister's implementation of a c64 core is good... but the Ultimate 64 is just better, and it's nice to have a single machine that acts for all intents and purposes just like a souped up original Commodore 64.
) -and a nice ArcadeR joystick that I like to use fairly exclusively for each. 