The All things MiSTer thread (Now Consolised)

[phillai]

Gunbird 2 soon on MiSTer? Yes please!!

https://twitter.com/topapate/status/1538407076514373632?s=20&t=Ut3iZkO2D540FO1gRpgKvw

Let's see who is still stupid enough to still hoard the Gunbird 2 PCB!!

[dataDave]

Gunbird 2 soon on MiSTer? Yes please!!

https://twitter.com/topapate/status/1538407076514373632?s=20&t=Ut3iZkO2D540FO1gRpgKvw

Let's see who is still stupid enough to still hoard the Gunbird 2 PCB!!

All the Strikers games won't be too far behind, then.

Doesn't the SH2 board also host some of your Tetris GM games, Phil?

[phillai]

Not sure but the very first Tetris Grand Master arcade is already available via the Playstation core.

The MiSTer just keeps giving back something new every week - Definitely makes me feel giddy and young again?

Have you guys seen the recently released Game & Watch core?

[Escape-To-88]

Gunbird 2 soon on MiSTer? Yes please!!

https://twitter.com/topapate/status/1538407076514373632?s=20&t=Ut3iZkO2D540FO1gRpgKvw

Let's see who is still stupid enough to still hoard the Gunbird 2 PCB!!

I don’t think the goal of MiSTer is to form a community of individuals who berate those of us who still use boards. I sold my MiSTers as I'd rather have the boards. That won't change anytime soon. Don't really want to get into mud slinging but having done side by sides with boards and MiSTer I'd rather have the former. It's also worth remembering cores are only as good as the person creating them and, as many of the arcade community have confirmed, not all of Jotego's cores and completely 100% accurate.

MiSTer is a fab unit though and I think it's grand for the future of preservation and fully appreciate why the majority of people would want and use one.

[Baseley09]

At the end of the day it's still emulation and a fake experience, the best hollow experience maybe but there you go.

[Brad]

If you're only interested in a few things here and there then original kit still has its place but unless you're a millionaire, if you want to play on a range of systems and a wide choice of arcade machines then MiSTER is the best device to do that. I still keep an Amiga, c64 and a vic-20 but it's mister for everything else.

[dataDave]

At the end of the day it's still emulation and a fake experience, the best hollow experience maybe but there you go.

Yeah, but you've not sampled one plugged into a CRT. ;p Besides, in terms of experience I fall off as soon as I realise I'm not playing in a public space in the early nineties. Not even real hardware and Arcade Club can make up for that, so the job's F'ed anyway if I think buying my own cab (again) and boards (again) is going to solve anything.

I think it's a bit like comparing FLAC to vinyl. In fact, it's exactly like that.

There's literally no reason not to have one, even to accompany real hardware. More so for the preservation of said hardware, in fact. As for the consoles I'm glad to have the days of trying to source RGB amps and overpriced cables behind me. Those were **** experiences. I much prefer browsing video processing and LPF options within menus now. It's free, and precise, and doesn't break. All that old stuff is now stored away out of sight and dust (along with my vinyl records). The only reason it's not all sold off is that it might be worth more tomorrow.

having done side by sides with boards and MiSTer I'd rather have the former. It's also worth remembering cores are only as good as the person creating them and, as many of the arcade community have confirmed, not all of Jotego's cores and completely 100% accurate.

Wasn't it the controller input that you weren't so happy with? The only inconsistency with his cores I've heard about is through his own reported 0.08% error metrics with the system/bus clock timings. That's barely perceptible by machine, let alone human. By comparison, MAME on its best day weighs in at 44% error.

[Colin]

I might be grossly missing something here, but this entire endeavour seems a huge faff. A core for this game, a core for that game etc. It just seems like a massive amount of hassle. My raspberry pi satiates pretty much all of my retro needs up to and including PS1, but cards on the table I’m probably easier pleased than most. I can run through Metal Slug on the Pi as smoothly as I could on my AES, but at the same time I’ve never cared or noticed the difference between 30-60fps on newer games. The MiSTer seems more about tinkering than fun. And expensive. I’m clearly missing something though as you all seem to rabidly love it.

[dataDave]

I might be grossly missing something here, but this entire endeavour seems a huge faff. A core for this game, a core for that game etc. It just seems like a massive amount of hassle. My raspberry pi satiates pretty much all of my retro needs up to and including PS1, but cards on the table I’m probably easier pleased than most. I can run through Metal Slug on the Pi as smoothly as I could on my AES, but at the same time I’ve never cared or noticed the difference between 30-60fps on newer games. The MiSTer seems more about tinkering than fun. And expensive. I’m clearly missing something though as you all seem to rabidly love it.

Yeah, it's a helluva lot simpler than you're imagining. By a lot. Each console has its own core, as do arcade games (because they are separate boards/hardware after all). There's a massive list of arcade cores (games), as there are massive lists of ROMs within each console core (if you wish, no one's forcing you to populate those ROMs folders ). It's so simple you could flit from Garou to Harmful Park within two seconds and three button presses.

Each time some boffin completes a new arcade game or console core it'll get downloaded whenever you run the update_all script from the menu. It's one button press and a 10-minute wait while it checks literally everything it can, including all the system iterations. I usually do this every Friday, or whenever something hot gets released. I enjoy watching it do its thing.

It's a lot less hassle than managing a nest of cabling and having to get up to switch games or SCART inputs. The user interface is actually very, very barebones and intuitive. The bulk of the system-level tinkering is done with the .ini files which most people will never need to touch unless instructed otherwise. I'd actually hazard a claim that there's far less of a setup and maintenance here than there is on a Pi.

Besides that, if you want it to look better on your 4K OLED than it does/would on a PVM then it's just a matter of farting around with a few video options in the menu... Or even better yet, downloading a preset that someone else has made and copying over the config (like I offered a couple of pages back). Everyone else running one into a 4K set can then benefit from the fruits of my whole Sunday mucking about. That side of it functions like the popular upscalers currently do (OSSC/RetroTink).

[Asura]

My raspberry pi satiates pretty much all of my retro needs up to and including PS1, but cards on the table I’m probably easier pleased than most.

Admittedly this is why I'm waiting for a pretty-much-flawless Saturn core. If you primarily want to emulate Neo-Geo, Megadrive and CPS 1-2 to a pretty great degree, the Pi is fantastic provided you're not after absolutely flawless emulation (which I've never been too worried about; I just want the right speed, no new slowdown, broad compatibility and so on). For me, it just has to pass reasonable inspection.

But there are machines like the Saturn and PS1 which can work on emulation solutions but their compatibility isn't amazing and visually they're a bit mixed. Whenever you say this people come out the woodwork to say "well what doesn't work? Huh? Huh?!" as if I'm challenging their religion, but all I know is back when I had an RG350M, I tried PS1 (as a curio, as it wasn't why I got the machine) and it was all-over-the-place.

The MiSTer seems like it'll offer the chance to run Saturn & PS1 as well as the Pi runs Megadrive.

[dataDave]

The MiSTer seems like it'll offer the chance to run Saturn & PS1 as well as the Pi runs Megadrive.

I know you're simply generalising there, before I wade in with my "well, actually...", but It'll run the Saturn and PS1 as well as the Saturn and PS1, if not with distilled video and audio. The difference between this thing and my 1CHIP SFC with expensive RGC SCART lead is obvious. The same for the PSOne, but the margin there isn't as vast as the PSOne had pretty decent video anyway. The NeoGeo AES has varying video qualities depending on what serial number you have, with some being not so desirable.

The PlayStation is already getting widescreen support. I know that's not authentic, as the original hardware never did that, although it's nice to have if you want to turn it on.

All I need to be concerned about now is the cost of importing in RaphNet adapters from Japan. I also need a couple of arcade joysticks sorting out with all the accompanying parts mods. :/ I keep forgetting about the pair of GunCons I don't have yet as well.

[Asura]

I know you're simply generalising there, before I wade in with my "well, actually...",

I just meant more in terms of broad compatibility without a lot of faffing on. Like the Pi's not flawless emulation but Megadrive emu is pretty much a solved problem now. I know if I have a huge pool of Megadrive games, I can whack any of them into a Pi emulator and they're going to work, apart from, maybe, 2-3 awkward ones out of the 3,000 or so games that exist.

Being FPGA, the MiSTer has the advantage that it either works or it doesn't; like once you perfect a Saturn core, it's going to run literally everything. But on PS1 emulators, I'm used to devices requiring you have several emulators, and you have to use different ones for different games.

[Escape-To-88]

Yeah, but you've not sampled one plugged into a CRT. ;p Besides, in terms of experience I fall off as soon as I realise I'm not playing in a public space in the early nineties. Not even real hardware and Arcade Club can make up for that, so the job's F'ed anyway if I think buying my own cab (again) and boards (again) is going to solve anything.

I think it's a bit like comparing FLAC to vinyl. In fact, it's exactly like that.

There's literally no reason not to have one, even to accompany real hardware. More so for the preservation of said hardware, in fact. As for the consoles I'm glad to have the days of trying to source RGB amps and overpriced cables behind me. Those were **** experiences. I much prefer browsing video processing and LPF options within menus now. It's free, and precise, and doesn't break. All that old stuff is now stored away out of sight and dust (along with my vinyl records). The only reason it's not all sold off is that it might be worth more tomorrow.



Wasn't it the controller input that you weren't so happy with? The only inconsistency with his cores I've heard about is through his own reported 0.08% error metrics with the system/bus clock timings. That's barely perceptible by machine, let alone human. By comparison, MAME on its best day weighs in at 44% error.

It's probably just me being silly, but in some instances certain things don't 'feel' quite right and yes the controls feel tighter to me on the board of, say, Final Fight, for example. It's not overly quantifiable meaning it's probably just me noticing nothing. I will say that the audio on all cores doesn't sound like any of the PCB equivalents I own, although that's of course to be expected due to how sound is output. It was actually a couple of friends of mind who said 1943 and Commando were miles out compared to their boards. I've not got those PCBs so can't test, but he's done some additional side by sides and speed and audio is off so he tells me. I have no idea whether this is actually the case of course.

I think MiSTer is a great bit of kit, just too much choice mainly for me in the end and would rather settle for a smaller selection of games. I'd be interested to see Sexy Parodius if that ever gets a core as MAME is miles out. Having the board of that feels and sounds like a completely different game to MAME emulation, so would be interesting to compare if it ever happens.

I also still use my old records though..

[phillai]

I just meant more in terms of broad compatibility without a lot of faffing on. Like the Pi's not flawless emulation but Megadrive emu is pretty much a solved problem now. I know if I have a huge pool of Megadrive games, I can whack any of them into a Pi emulator and they're going to work, apart from, maybe, 2-3 awkward ones out of the 3,000 or so games that exist.

Just curious to know but does a Pi support SNES MSU-1 games??

[briareos_kerensky]

DExx-vd_isl, a dedicated line multiplier/scaler is available. Interesting to see that the FPGA uses the same architecture as the upcoming OSSC Pro.

https://videogameperfection.com/2022/06/28/newsletter-issue-heres/