Ah, nice one, thanks a lot!
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MiSTer: the thread of cycle accuracy
- Thread starter Phantoon
- Start date
It's well worth checking out as it is, I assure you - there's nothing that feels obviously 'unfinished' about it even at this stage. By contrast, the (final?) Neo Geo core is plagued with really noticeable sound issues across almost every game.
John
(he/him)
This is the creator of the WonderSwan and the Splitscreen GBA cores, teasing what he's working on. This is an emulator running a demo of an unspecified system, but sleuths have cross referenced all the ports of the NICCC demo with MiSTer cores, which narrows the field considerably. It could be the GP32, PSP, or 3DO, but the resolution looks a little low compared to the PSP demo. Twitter replies are leaning to the 3DO, but my money's on the GP32 since the creator worked on two other handheld systems.
If you've got the cash, you can get one prebuilt from a specialty vendor. MisterAddons.com is a reliable source, although he doesn't have any in stock right now (and I'm guessing you'd be better off with a UK/Euro supplier).
There are prebuilt ones here if you want one, but their shipping seems hefty (they quoted 18 euro to get an RGB cable to me in the UK)
I got lucky and found a prebuilt one on eBay that had everything I need for £300, so you might want to set up a saved search and see what crops up over the next month or so. However, I found that most readymades seem to go for around £500, at which point you're definitely better off throwing one together yourself (which literally just involves clipping boards together and screwing down separators, etc). To get started you only really need the DE-10 Nano itself, or so I believe, and for everything else there's this website: https://misterfpga.co.uk/
Mine has the following:
DE-10 Nano
128mb RAM (this is optional - I bought it to ensure my Mister plays Neo Geo games, and whatever comes out in future)
I/O board for connecting it to a CRT (optional - you can connect to an HDTV via the Nano)
USB hub (optional)
heatsink for the DE-10
Buying all this stuff would probably come to around £250, and half of it is optional! Getting the software up and running is easy, too - the most popular method is putting the MiSTerFusion image on a microSD card, slotting it in the DE-10 and letting it do its thing. (The only thing I've really added to it is the Update_All script, for playing Jotego's CPS2 games, but that's a piece of piss too.)
Edit: oh, you'll also need a power supply, a power splitter cable (if you get the USB hub), and maybe some acrylic plates for protection, but that's all on misterfpga.co.uk - I'm told they're extremely helpful if you're unsure about your needs.
I got lucky and found a prebuilt one on eBay that had everything I need for £300, so you might want to set up a saved search and see what crops up over the next month or so. However, I found that most readymades seem to go for around £500, at which point you're definitely better off throwing one together yourself (which literally just involves clipping boards together and screwing down separators, etc). To get started you only really need the DE-10 Nano itself, or so I believe, and for everything else there's this website: https://misterfpga.co.uk/
Mine has the following:
DE-10 Nano
128mb RAM (this is optional - I bought it to ensure my Mister plays Neo Geo games, and whatever comes out in future)
I/O board for connecting it to a CRT (optional - you can connect to an HDTV via the Nano)
USB hub (optional)
heatsink for the DE-10
Buying all this stuff would probably come to around £250, and half of it is optional! Getting the software up and running is easy, too - the most popular method is putting the MiSTerFusion image on a microSD card, slotting it in the DE-10 and letting it do its thing. (The only thing I've really added to it is the Update_All script, for playing Jotego's CPS2 games, but that's a piece of piss too.)
Edit: oh, you'll also need a power supply, a power splitter cable (if you get the USB hub), and maybe some acrylic plates for protection, but that's all on misterfpga.co.uk - I'm told they're extremely helpful if you're unsure about your needs.
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madhair60
Video games
I'll look into it; thanks. The pre-made ones I've found are psychotically expensive.
Just don’t count those Saturn chickens until they’ve hatched - despite the impressive progress we’ve seen lately, I don’t think it’s guaranteed to work.
And if money IS an object, seriously consider just buying the DE-10, some RAM and a fan. It really isn’t very difficult to put together.
And if money IS an object, seriously consider just buying the DE-10, some RAM and a fan. It really isn’t very difficult to put together.
Don't hope for too much with the Neo Geo core either - in its present condition it's no substitute for MAME, let alone MVS/AES hardware. Everything else I've tried is pretty much in "you can safely sell your old console now" territory, though. You'd find a Mister a huge step up from a Pi, easily.
I mean there are sound issues in some games, but personally I find Neo Geo games play really well on the MiSTer. If you aren't super familiar with the arcade hardware, you might not even notice the issue.
Yeah, most games run nicely, and are accurate enough that even 'undesirable' artifacts like slowdown and sprite flicker are replicated properly, etc - it feels churlish and ungrateful to mention problems at all, since it's such a generous and amazing project that we should be thankful even exists. It's specifically the sound issues which are hampering my enjoyment, since they seem to affect my favourite games the worst (Zed Blade has problems on most tracks, and its title-screen music can burst in like the Kool-Aid man at any moment during gameplay - it's pretty funny)! It's a well-known problem, though, so hopefully it won't be ignored forever.
Saturn sorcery update:
Phantoon
I cuss you bad
I finally stopped being stubborn and did.
CPS2 coincided with the point when I finally started going to arcades. On holiday I would go to London's (now dear departed) Trocadero and play games like Night Warriors, Marvel Super Heroes and Street Fighter Alpha 2. Or play X-Men: Children of the Atom at the (also dear departed) Yaohan Plaza. The games were vibrant, kinetic, exciting, and madly inventive. They were hugely beyond anything the home consoles could do and they were hugely important to young Phantoon.
I played Street Fighter Alpha 2 to death on the PlayStation (and buggered my thumbs doing it) but it could never compare to the real thing.
Finally, I have it. The full fat experience. And it was worth the wait. Capcom's output has always been brilliant, but CPS2 was downright magical. I can't get the Trocadero back, but it's bringing back a lot of the feelings.
Sarge
hardcore retro gamin'
Apparently a sound fix was committed for the Neo Geo core. You have to download the nightly build right now, but I'm sure it'll be in the main release soon. Very cool indeed.
That's an incredibly pleasant surprise - there was so much talk on Mister forums of a lack of interest in looking into it. Thanks for this!
Edit: after a little testing, I can confirm that all of the sound issues I had noticed seem to have cleared up. Pulstar and Blazing Star sound much better, and Zed Blade / Operation Ragnarok in particular has seen massive improvements: the weapon select music no longer suffers from odd timing (it was kind of tripping over itself), and the title music no longer bursts in at random during the stages. (I don't know if there's anything else that might be 'unstable' about the build at the user end, though. Might be worth waiting for the official release if the sound issues didn't bother you.)
Edit: after a little testing, I can confirm that all of the sound issues I had noticed seem to have cleared up. Pulstar and Blazing Star sound much better, and Zed Blade / Operation Ragnarok in particular has seen massive improvements: the weapon select music no longer suffers from odd timing (it was kind of tripping over itself), and the title music no longer bursts in at random during the stages. (I don't know if there's anything else that might be 'unstable' about the build at the user end, though. Might be worth waiting for the official release if the sound issues didn't bother you.)
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John
(he/him)
Robert's announced what this is, and all of the guesses were wrong: Playstation. Everyone was thrown off because of the other PSX project that stalled out, and assumed this would be a unique system. He's not going to be using any assets from that project, because it would be harder for him to troubleshoot other people's code.
Currently he's just working on his own PC emulator, which eventually will translate to FPGA after he has a better handle on how the system works.
Sarge
hardcore retro gamin'
He said that if someone else didn't do it, it was too important to not look at, so he was true to his word. Excellent news indeed. I'm still a little worried how well this and Saturn are going to work out, but I absolutely love that folks with excellent skills are working on them.
Sarge
hardcore retro gamin'
And that fight, to some extent, also felt a little like 2D vs. 3D, even if 3D was the big push on both systems. Saturn had so much raw potential for 2D that I have to wonder how much more we could have gotten if the industry wasn't obsessed with 3D and that the Saturn didn't bomb so hard here (two things that are probably inextricably linked, although the curious lack of Sonic games also factors in).
(And yes, there are clearly a ton of other factors, too. Sega really is one of the biggest "what if" players in the industry.)
(And yes, there are clearly a ton of other factors, too. Sega really is one of the biggest "what if" players in the industry.)