Mister FPGA
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Soldato
Soldato
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There are certain games I've played that just felt off on things like Raspberry Pi. NES Super Mario Brothers is one of them. The tiny bit of lag just ruined the experience for me and with Mister that's now gone. Many people won't notice or care, especially for games that are not super sensitive to lag.
I was hesitant at first as it lacked things like the types of filters/shaders you got with other options like Retroarch. I'm all in and a convert now though. I only really care about Arcades and a few select consoles so is perfect for me. It's just whether you want to stump up almost 10 times as much to play on Mister if you're only a filthy casual. For 90% of people it's probably not worth it.
I was hesitant at first as it lacked things like the types of filters/shaders you got with other options like Retroarch. I'm all in and a convert now though. I only really care about Arcades and a few select consoles so is perfect for me. It's just whether you want to stump up almost 10 times as much to play on Mister if you're only a filthy casual. For 90% of people it's probably not worth it.
I completed the Mario All Stars version of Super Mario Brothers 1 and at first I just thought I was rubbish at the game! I hadn't played a Mario game for a long time and I just thought I was bad! Then I realised my TV in game mode has 40ms of delay and the Pi is about 3 to 4 frames of lag (160ms or so) and it just killed me completing it!
I completed the game eventually but I had to use save states and sort of cheat my way through the worlds!
I definitely want to play it again through on a crt and with the Mister!
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Soldato
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Yeh worth it for a good experience. Fast usb polling also helps. I was kind of tempted to pick up an old Sony Trinitron or something but the prices are now high and storage would be an issue. Gotta draw the line somewhere!
Ah yeah that fast usb setting was mentioned in a few places but I don't think I've implemented that yet. I managed to snag a blister v1 from ebay from Pezz 82 who does / did the YouTube videos so I've been using the original pads for the consoles which helps with the feel too.
You're right the cost of TVs has gone up massively. If you keep an eye out on local ebay or gumtree collection only auctions you may get lucky and pick one up cheap but it is a fluke.
Believe it or not I managed to snag a free 29 inch 4:3 Sony CRT from WORK the other week! It was hiding in a storage cupboard for years and it was being left so I asked and took it. It's got the Sony stand and super reinforced castor wheels too as it was used for VHS training videos! Unless someone left it on I bet it's had next to no use as all. Very lucky find!
I’m really on the fence here. It’s going to either be a mister(with the de-10 @ £175) or get a good upscaler for my hardware and set them all up.
That's a difficult one to answer as there're many pros and cons to each. The Mister will probably emulate way more consoles than you have physically but if you only want snes / mega drive etc then the original consoles will be fine.
Mister can run pretty much any game but consoles will need a krikzz device or the actual game, if you know what I mean.
Real consoles have the real pads but they could be old / worn / damaged etc or you need an adapter for the Mister which is extra cost.
To get the best possible picture for your old consoles you'll want an RGB scart cable from somewhere like Retro Gaming Cables and that's for each console as well. So about £20 to £25 for each cable for each console. Cheaper on ebay but quality will vary etc.
Then the upscaler cost as well which is a framemeister for £280 or so or or OSSC at about £110 maybe more now. There're retro tink devices too for different up scaling options but I believe these two are still the best.
It will probably cost about the same depending on which route you take or depending on how many actual consoles you're wanting to upscale.
The final thing to say is Mister is sort of fake real and even though it 8s hardware emulation there can still be bugs or issues.
Real consoles are the real deal so will work exactly as intended and if there are bugs or issues then they have existed for 30 years lol.
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An other way to look at it, is the MiSTer can also be a great accompaniment to real hardware for many reasons; convenience, preservation - even if just not using your original hardware all the time and access to indistinguishable arcade cores. The last point being something most of us won't have had.
MiSTer definitely has its own foibles around trying to get to 100% accuracy, but having read Jotego's latest Patreon post today about replicating the yellow screen flashes in the Ghost's n' Goblins PCB and a crazy level of attention to detail, it is hard to believe this isn't the future.
MiSTer definitely has its own foibles around trying to get to 100% accuracy, but having read Jotego's latest Patreon post today about replicating the yellow screen flashes in the Ghost's n' Goblins PCB and a crazy level of attention to detail, it is hard to believe this isn't the future.
I will probably be what I end up going with.
As vs the cost of Everdrives / upscalers etc etc it's going to be 6 and 2 3's in terms of cost, but a lot less space taken up.
As vs the cost of Everdrives / upscalers etc etc it's going to be 6 and 2 3's in terms of cost, but a lot less space taken up.
Space is another good reason to go for the Mister! You'd need the space of the Retro Man Cave for all the hardware the Mister can run!
Plus you can swap between mega drive, snes then amiga etc and not have to really move or unplug anything and reach around the TV to unplug the scart cable etc or buy a decent scart switcher!
Mister is the winner for me to be fair but I do have a soft spot for the original consoles as well!
Only found out about this recently and have been reading up and starting to understand more and can see what it can offer over a Pi type setup (which i have).
I see a 486 core is available and it's interesting watching youtube vids of how it 'struggles' with Pentium type games - I remember well that era when I was trying to run similar on an actual 486 fond memories. It seems crazy i'm actually tempted to purchase, i really like the modular bits you can add on and imagine there may even be some kind of 3dfx one day. I notice there is a MT-32 addon/hat which I always wanted to own back in the day (Roland).
What worries me is that it seems to be accepted PSX would be the limit of this and even that is some time away?
I see a 486 core is available and it's interesting watching youtube vids of how it 'struggles' with Pentium type games - I remember well that era when I was trying to run similar on an actual 486
fond memories. It seems crazy i'm actually tempted to purchase, i really like the modular bits you can add on and imagine there may even be some kind of 3dfx one day. I notice there is a MT-32 addon/hat which I always wanted to own back in the day (Roland).What worries me is that it seems to be accepted PSX would be the limit of this and even that is some time away?
The PSX core is up and running, guy working on it is constantly updating and fixing bugs, but the vast majority of games are playable. Community have said consoles beyond 32bit era are to complex for the current setup. Other more complex FPGA hardware is too expensive, so likely where emulation will stop for the time being.Only found out about this recently and have been reading up and starting to understand more and can see what it can offer over a Pi type setup (which i have).
I see a 486 core is available and it's interesting watching youtube vids of how it 'struggles' with Pentium type games - I remember well that era when I was trying to run similar on an actual 486
What worries me is that it seems to be accepted PSX would be the limit of this and even that is some time away?
There are a lot of Arcade cores being worked on, with a lot of Konami games coming from Jotego soon.
Current cores I am interested in will be Saturn, 3DO and Atari Jaguar. I'd also like to see Point Blank and Time Crisis cores (if possible), as we've seen decent lightgun support on the system recently.
Amazing bit of kit.
They said Playstation and Saturn would never be done but here we are, playstation is 99% perfect now, Saturn is a bit delayed due to the developer being in Ukraine, despite that he got the 32x core out recently.
It wouldnt surprise me if we got an N64 core, I think thats all thats going to be missing really, it may have to use a hybrid with a pi though, guess we wait and see.
It wouldnt surprise me if we got an N64 core, I think thats all thats going to be missing really, it may have to use a hybrid with a pi though, guess we wait and see.
Cheers guys. I am really tempted 
just dug my old PVM monitor out too and would be nice to see that get some use.
This will probably seem a daft question but why was hardware emulation (which I think i'm right in saying this is?) not used before? Is it a case of technology now at a point where it's made the cost feasible? Looking at the base spec of the DE-10 nano (800MHz Dual-core , 1gb DDR3) it doesn't seem anything high-end?
just dug my old PVM monitor out too and would be nice to see that get some use.This will probably seem a daft question but why was hardware emulation (which I think i'm right in saying this is?) not used before? Is it a case of technology now at a point where it's made the cost feasible? Looking at the base spec of the DE-10 nano (800MHz Dual-core , 1gb DDR3) it doesn't seem anything high-end?
Ah man a PVM, I really wish I had one! LuckyCheers guys. I am really tempted
This will probably seem a daft question but why was hardware emulation (which I think i'm right in saying this is?) not used before? Is it a case of technology now at a point where it's made the cost feasible? Looking at the base spec of the DE-10 nano (800MHz Dual-core , 1gb DDR3) it doesn't seem anything high-end?
That's just the specs of the ARM processor, the Cyclone V FPGA is what's doing the actual work.
From what I know the subsidised DE-10 nano being readily available and at a reasonable price (at least until recently) really opened this up to a lot more people and accelerated how things have developed over the last 5 years.
Cheers , keeping fingers crossed it's still in good order. It has been awhileAh man a PVM, I really wish I had one! Lucky
That makes sense, thank you.
LCD, I can't justify the cost of a PVM at the moment. If I did have a PVM, I would likely use original hardware anyway.