MiSTer FPGA board

[Galgomite]

A working Sega CD/ Mega CD core is now on MiSTer. It has a short list of issues (which may grow) but it’s insanely impressive and the MiSTer is now an incredible value.

[fernan1234]

A working Sega CD/ Mega CD core is now on MiSTer. It has a short list of issues (which may grow) but it’s insanely impressive and the MiSTer is now an incredible value.

Really cool news! I'm surprised this system is supported before the supposedly less complex PC Engine CD. But this probably means that the latter is not too far away in the future! And to be honest the Mega CD library cannot even compare to the PC Engine CD's, so when that opens up the Mister's value will really grow massively.

[Galgomite]

I know— PC Engine/ Turbo CD Is the format I’ve been waiting for! Not long now, I hope.

[ahaddow]

I really want one of these but Mister Addons seems to have inconsistent stock right now.
I hope the various parts come back in stock next year because I really want one of these things now.
I can order the DE-10 Nano itself locally in Japan pretty easily but I don't know of anyone who sells the other parts here.

[Wolf_]

Considering the Sega CD just came out today it is still in the "initial release" stage. Given the skill of the designer and community supporting it via patches and bug reports I fully expect it to be something you could call "very stable" in as quickly as a week or two.

The gba core released a week ago and has seen rapid improvement but the gba is a much more complicated beast so I'd expect that to take a month or two before it gets to the point I would consider it "very stable". (Not to say that it isn't amazing right now, you might just encounter one or two little hiccups and when I play a game I prefer to not have to worry about that so I consider a core "very stable" when I hardly, if ever, run into glitches.)

And considering the tg-cd is not that much additional hardware over the tg-16 I imagine the development of that core will greatly benefit from the existence of all the cd interface code from the sega-cd core. Although how soon it will come out I can not guess as we also have a lot of other things in the pipeline like a ps1 core that is 60-70% complete and a ton of info just got released about the atari 7800 and 3do. And we seriously average like 5 new arcade cores a week.

And that doesn't even touch on like the 15 other consoles supported including amazing genesis and snes cores (not to mention special chip support)

The MiSTer should really be an instant buy for anyone interested in a great retro gaming experience with anything from around the year ~2000 or earlier.

[Bassa-Bassa]

Is the SNES core as accurate as BSNES/Higan, in regards to the emulation code itself (and disregarding some special chips emulation), or is more like 'a good approach', SNES9X-style?

Actually, didn't the Megadrive/Genesis core have some sound-related inaccuracies which you don't find yet in the most advanced emulators for Windows?

[tomwhite2004]

No, from my experience the SNES core is not as accurate as bsnes/higan (fyi the core in MiSTer was primarily developed using bsnes open source documentation) or even as bug free and generally playable as SNES9x in its current state. Whilst I have only had my MiSTer setup for a couple of weeks many, many of the SNES games that I have played have had small issues, nothing game breaking but still noticeable if you know what things should look like in the first place. Ignore anyone that tells you the core is just as good as the Super NT or matches software emulation, the base console emulation still isn't as good (yet).

Megadrive audio should be pretty much identical between MiSTer, Mega Sg and the Nuked YM2612 option available in Genesis Plus GX. If there are differences then they are now very small and not worth worrying about. But it does seem that in bug fixing MiSTer's Ym2612 audio that the Nuked open source documentation was used and is still regarded as the reference to go from.

[Bassa-Bassa]

That's some great info, many thanks. It's too bad nobody is posting this stuff 'officially' ànd the general belief is that SNES emulation on Mister is good enough or even perfect. Is there a place where the core's progress can be followed, in case it still develops?

At least, the MD core is essentially flawless, then. What about the PC Engine, not counting CD compatibility?

[donluca]

No, from my experience the SNES core is not as accurate as bsnes/higan (fyi the core in MiSTer was primarily developed using bsnes open source documentation)

Are you sure about this?

After all the drama that stirred up after that infamous byuu post, I had the impression that MiSTer was on par with bsnes/higan and actually managed to get something run even better which was then backported to bsnes.

byuu himself said that the development of bsnes would benefit MiSTer as well and viceversa.

[orange808]

No, from my experience the SNES core is not as accurate as bsnes/higan (fyi the core in MiSTer was primarily developed using bsnes open source documentation)

Are you sure about this?

After all the drama that stirred up after that infamous byuu post, I had the impression that MiSTer was on par with bsnes/higan and actually managed to get something run even better which was then backported to bsnes.

byuu himself said that the development of bsnes would benefit MiSTer as well and viceversa.

That's why open source emulation is great. Everyone benefits and the machines/games are better preserved for the future.

[tomwhite2004]

Are you sure about this?

After all the drama that stirred up after that infamous byuu post, I had the impression that MiSTer was on par with bsnes/higan and actually managed to get something run even better which was then backported to bsnes.

byuu himself said that the development of bsnes would benefit MiSTer as well and viceversa.

I read that the developer didn't even have a console when the core was first released, he just used open source documentation to put it together. It wasn't until a few months ago that he actually got his hands on the hardware to run tests on. It could well be that progress has been made in certain areas that then benefited software emulation but like I said that doesn't speak of the overall quality of the core. I'm not saying it's bad or anything hyperbolic but there is still work to be done to get it up to the high standard that we have been used to for so long now.

For example booted up Contra Spirits last night and saw the below where the top of the screen is not solid black where it should be, instead you see the background mode 7 layer and a bunch of flickering lines. nothing major but still the type of bug that is more frequent than I was expecting.

Is there a place where the core's progress can be followed, in case it still develops?

http://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.ph ... &start=375

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/SNES_Mi ... r/releases

Although I imagine there is also a good chunk of talk in discord that I'm not privy too.

At least, the MD core is essentially flawless, then. What about the PC Engine, not counting CD compatibility?

No experience with the core yet so can't comment. Have read plenty of people claim it to be perfect but I no longer believe them or any such talk given my findings with the other cores so far!

[donluca]

I read that the developer didn't even have a console when the core was first released, he just used open source documentation to put it together. It wasn't until a few months ago that he actually got his hands on the hardware to run tests on. It could well be that progress has been made in certain areas that then benefited software emulation but like I said that doesn't speak of the overall quality of the core. I'm not saying it's bad or anything hyperbolic but there is still work to be done to get it up to the high standard that we have been used to for so long now.

For example booted up Contra Spirits last night and saw the below where the top of the screen is not solid black where it should be, instead you see the background mode 7 layer and a bunch of flickering lines. nothing major but still the type of bug that is more frequent than I was expecting.

Oh, man, I stand corrected then. Thanks for sharing this, I swear I knew a different version of this story.

[Shelcoof]

Really interested in picking one of these up but am still on the fence. Not sure if waiting would be more beneficial as I still have a few projects and items to purchase before dropping more money on any other project.

Plus I have a very tiny ThinkCentre dedicated to emulation that's hooked up to a CRT monitor that I've been using now that does the job nicely. Not sure if I'm ready to move forward and "upgrade" with the Mister.

I guess you can say all this "HYPE" with the MiSTer is really getting to me now lol

[ldeveraux]

Really interested in picking one of these up but am still on the fence. Not sure if waiting would be more beneficial as I still have a few projects and items to purchase before dropping more money on any other project.

Plus I have a very tiny ThinkCentre dedicated to emulation that's hooked up to a CRT monitor that I've been using now that does the job nicely. Not sure if I'm ready to move forward and "upgrade" with the Mister.

I guess you can say all this "HYPE" with the MiSTer is really getting to me now lol

I'd say if you're on the fence, wait for a more user friendly front end before buying. In my opinion, that's the only thing holding it back from completely replacing my RetroPie. I mean, I bought one, and it's great, but just my 2c.

[Wolf_]

Really interested in picking one of these up but am still on the fence. Not sure if waiting would be more beneficial as I still have a few projects and items to purchase before dropping more money on any other project.

Plus I have a very tiny ThinkCentre dedicated to emulation that's hooked up to a CRT monitor that I've been using now that does the job nicely. Not sure if I'm ready to move forward and "upgrade" with the Mister.

I guess you can say all this "HYPE" with the MiSTer is really getting to me now lol

I'd say if you're on the fence, wait for a more user friendly front end before buying. In my opinion, that's the only thing holding it back from completely replacing my RetroPie. I mean, I bought one, and it's great, but just my 2c.

The person working on the MiSTer user guide (bible) has said they are going to take a look at improving the front end so I imagine that will probably get some polish very soon.

And considering it has amazing snes, genesis, sega cd, Neo Geo, nes, sgx, gbc, and gba cores (and many others) with tg-cd and ps1 cores on the way I can't see why you wouldn't invest in it.

Also I'd say the snes core is 100% playable (no bugs impact gameplay let alone break games from what I have seen) and the only bugs that exist are very minor graphical ones you would only notice in games you are looking at side by side or have memorized by heart and those are usually patched very quickly after they get reported. Considering the core is under a year old and supports every special chip except for a shogi game ai chip used in a single game I'd consider the 99.8% perfect core to be outstanding with the potential to reach bsnes levels of accuracy sooner rather than later. The main thing keeping it from perfection atm is just waiting on more people to play with it and notice any of the fairly well hidden (to the average user) remaining bugs.

[thrasherx]

No, from my experience the SNES core is not as accurate as bsnes/higan (fyi the core in MiSTer was primarily developed using bsnes open source documentation) or even as bug free and generally playable as SNES9x in its current state. Whilst I have only had my MiSTer setup for a couple of weeks many, many of the SNES games that I have played have had small issues, nothing game breaking but still noticeable if you know what things should look like in the first place. Ignore anyone that tells you the core is just as good as the Super NT or matches software emulation, the base console emulation still isn't as good (yet).

Megadrive audio should be pretty much identical between MiSTer, Mega Sg and the Nuked YM2612 option available in Genesis Plus GX. If there are differences then they are now very small and not worth worrying about. But it does seem that in bug fixing MiSTer's Ym2612 audio that the Nuked open source documentation was used and is still regarded as the reference to go from.

If you see bugs, please submit them as issues on the SNES Github core page. There are currently 10 issues, some of which are feature requests. It’s hard to quantify “accurate” but people have tested the SuperNT open bugs on MiSTer and almost none of them exist. It passes almost all the SNES hardware tests, supports all special chips, etc. It’s replaced my THS7374 1Chip SNES and SD2SNES.

Regarding Megadrive audio, it’s extremely accurate and has been tuned using MDFourier. MegaSG audio differs from original hardware.

Looking forward to your eagle eye for bugs as the cores continue to get better and benefit emulators as well, because open source is magic while SuperNT improvements only benefit Analogue customers, which is a bummer.

srg320 is an absolute wizard when it comes to HDL. The MegaCD core came way faster than anyone expected.

[donluca]

Regarding Megadrive audio, it’s extremely accurate and has been tuned using MDFourier.

I'm really, really glad to read that. Finally MDFourier has been put to great use, hopefully other will follow. I'm curious as to what Mega Drive they used for reference, I guess the first model with revision VA3 to VA6.8?

[thrasherx]

Regarding Megadrive audio, it’s extremely accurate and has been tuned using MDFourier.

I'm really, really glad to read that. Finally MDFourier has been put to great use, hopefully other will follow. I'm curious as to what Mega Drive they used for reference, I guess the first model with revision VA3 to VA6.8?

VA3

[tomwhite2004]

If you see bugs, please submit them as issues on the SNES Github core page.

I plan to but am currently working through the entire MVS library (parent roms only, no bootlegs) and documenting what I have found there first as that core is what I primarily bought the MiSTer for, will take me a few more days to get that done and write up and organise everything.

[ldeveraux]

Really interested in picking one of these up but am still on the fence. Not sure if waiting would be more beneficial as I still have a few projects and items to purchase before dropping more money on any other project.

Plus I have a very tiny ThinkCentre dedicated to emulation that's hooked up to a CRT monitor that I've been using now that does the job nicely. Not sure if I'm ready to move forward and "upgrade" with the Mister.

I guess you can say all this "HYPE" with the MiSTer is really getting to me now lol

I'd say if you're on the fence, wait for a more user friendly front end before buying. In my opinion, that's the only thing holding it back from completely replacing my RetroPie. I mean, I bought one, and it's great, but just my 2c.

The person working on the MiSTer user guide (bible) has said they are going to take a look at improving the front end so I imagine that will probably get some polish very soon.

And considering it has amazing snes, genesis, sega cd, Neo Geo, nes, sgx, gbc, and gba cores (and many others) with tg-cd and ps1 cores on the way I can't see why you wouldn't invest in it.

Also I'd say the snes core is 100% playable (no bugs impact gameplay let alone break games from what I have seen) and the only bugs that exist are very minor graphical ones you would only notice in games you are looking at side by side or have memorized by heart and those are usually patched very quickly after they get reported. Considering the core is under a year old and supports every special chip except for a shogi game ai chip used in a single game I'd consider the 99.8% perfect core to be outstanding with the potential to reach bsnes levels of accuracy sooner rather than later. The main thing keeping it from perfection atm is just waiting on more people to play with it and notice any of the fairly well hidden (to the average user) remaining bugs.

He already had a current solution, a healthy backlog, and wasn't sold on spending more money. I don't disagree that it's a great device, but with those restrictions, why pay for it now just to sit around and gather dust?

[paulb_nl]

For example booted up Contra Spirits last night and saw the below where the top of the screen is not solid black where it should be, instead you see the background mode 7 layer and a bunch of flickering lines. nothing major but still the type of bug that is more frequent than I was expecting.

Thanks for reporting this. I found and fixed the issue so will be fixed in the next release.

[tomwhite2004]

Thanks for reporting this. I found and fixed the issue so will be fixed in the next release.

Thank you! With Mode 7 in mind could you also look at the title screen of Chrono Trigger? The pendulum skips upwards when the text starts to scroll out of the main "C" of the logo", again very minor stuff but couldn't help but notice it.

[donluca]

VA3

That's *very* impressive! Props to whoever is working on the audio side of the MD emulation on MiSTer!

[fernan1234]

Does anyone know which motherboard revision of the MD the MiSTer's MD core targets?

[paulb_nl]

Thank you! With Mode 7 in mind could you also look at the title screen of Chrono Trigger? The pendulum skips upwards when the text starts to scroll out of the main "C" of the logo", again very minor stuff but couldn't help but notice it.

It looks like the Mode 7 background is one pixel too low. I found out why it happens so it should be fixed soon.

The pendulum switches to Mode 2 when the text starts to scroll and the difference makes it seem like it jumps up 1 pixel.

[Wolf_]

And that is just how fantastic MiSTer is. The cores that have been out longer than a month or two typically have only small graphical glitches and those almost always get fixed very soon after someone reports them. The only issue is getting reports in for fairly hard to find bugs.

Honestly this is just such a fun project to be a part of.

[Bassa-Bassa]

It indeed is fantastic that the cores' authors, in addition to doing it for free, are eager to have them as perfect as it gets. Nevertheless, I'm not sure that it'll be that soon at least with systems with a soft catalog as huge as SNES' and Super Famicom's. 'Obscure' titles are likely to remain untested even for years given that most people are just worried about your usual suspects: the Marios and the Kongs, the RPG hits, the Konami masterpieces, etc. The GBA will likely take years and years. It shouldn't be a matter of just running them with no apparent issues, but of accurately replicating slowdowns and flicker and having them free of any kind of bugs, gameplay being impacted or not. I had a terrible deception with Terraonion's SSDS3 because they claimed that its emulation was basically bug-free and actually the number of games with issues, minor or major, was outstanding, and yet, nobody seemed to care since the affected games were 'obscure'. To this day, I guess most are still present. I mean, for a 'good-enough' approach, we already have PC emulators, don't we?

Then again, it's cool to see that the SNES core is still being developed and the author's attitude. Thanks again also to tomwhite2004 for reporting!

If you see bugs, please submit them as issues on the SNES Github core page.

I plan to but am currently working through the entire MVS library (parent roms only, no bootlegs) and documenting what I have found there first as that core is what I primarily bought the MiSTer for, will take me a few more days to get that done and write up and organise everything.

Again, thanks for that. It'd be really nice if all this bug reporting could be centralized a la Mametesters, since Github is not exactly the most friendly site and many users/potential testers will just overlook it, specially when there's also the Atari forum. But I'm just saying.

[Shelcoof]

I'd say if you're on the fence, wait for a more user friendly front end before buying. In my opinion, that's the only thing holding it back from completely replacing my RetroPie. I mean, I bought one, and it's great, but just my 2c.

The person working on the MiSTer user guide (bible) has said they are going to take a look at improving the front end so I imagine that will probably get some polish very soon.

And considering it has amazing snes, genesis, sega cd, Neo Geo, nes, sgx, gbc, and gba cores (and many others) with tg-cd and ps1 cores on the way I can't see why you wouldn't invest in it.

Also I'd say the snes core is 100% playable (no bugs impact gameplay let alone break games from what I have seen) and the only bugs that exist are very minor graphical ones you would only notice in games you are looking at side by side or have memorized by heart and those are usually patched very quickly after they get reported. Considering the core is under a year old and supports every special chip except for a shogi game ai chip used in a single game I'd consider the 99.8% perfect core to be outstanding with the potential to reach bsnes levels of accuracy sooner rather than later. The main thing keeping it from perfection atm is just waiting on more people to play with it and notice any of the fairly well hidden (to the average user) remaining bugs.

He already had a current solution, a healthy backlog, and wasn't sold on spending more money. I don't disagree that it's a great device, but with those restrictions, why pay for it now just to sit around and gather dust?

True I do currently have a very good all in one PC with the benefits of more emulators, Fightcade and STEAM. I even have a modded Wii that I make good use of as well. Actually the Wii is probably my most used machine when I want to get back to some old school classics

The question I have now is waiting a good idea? I currently don't really need one and the MiSTer is an evolving device.

We see this with the implementation of new cores and up-gradable components. We saw this with the RAM when the Neo Geo core was released.

I think its possible that if I get one now I might need to drop down more money on upgrades when new cores are released. That and the fact that you have to shop around for MiSTer components. I'd rather just buy one fully assembled from the get go but that option is just way more expensive.

[donluca]

The problem with MiSTer, just like other emus, is that it will always be as good as the coder makes it.

People think that in order to obtain perfect accuracy, each game needs to be tested because they might show issues. This is wrong in so many ways I honestly don't even know where to start.

Speaking of emulators and, more specifically, about platforms which have been around for decades and had all their chips decapped and studied at transistor level, if you make an emulator which runs fine for some games and has bugs/issues with others, you have messed it up.

That's it.
It's not that "the game does strange things" or "was coded in an unusual way", it's because your understanding of how certain hardware works is lacking and/or you haven't coded it properly.

What happens in 99,99999999999999999999999999999% of the cases where someone finds a bug in a certain game, the coder just adds a handler to have that game working correctly, better known as a patch.
And, again, this is so wrong that I can't really find any words to justify such approach.

If a game has a bug in your emulator, you don't make a patch, you get back to the drawing board and try to figure out what's wrong in your understanding of the hardware or the code you've written, because a game which runs flawlessly on original hardware MUST run in the exact same way on your emulator if you've done your work properly.

This is what happened with lots of emulators in the past: they became a jangled mess made of patches upon patches and it's no surprise their source code was never released, because you would have witnessed the worst kind of spaghetti code you've ever seen in your life (been there, done that, I preferred to start anew, from scratch).

I really hope that all the people working on MiSTer cores are doing things properly and the bugs in the SNES code reported will lead the core's author investigating about what's wrong and not just make a patch to have those games working properly and call it a day.
Good thing everything is on Github so we can check ourselves what's been done (and how).

I already have the money ready for a MiSTer board and accessories (I/O, RAM, etc.) but I'll wait until the cores' code has reached a certain maturity.

And, just to make sure: this is not an attack to all the awesome people investing their time into making cores for the MiSTer, but rather a glimpse into what happened in the past to make sure such errors won't be repeated and, hopefully, to let us enjoy proper, cycle accurate emulation.

[orange808]

The problem with MiSTer, just like other emus, is that it will always be as good as the coder makes it.

People think that in order to obtain perfect accuracy, each game needs to be tested because they might show issues. This is wrong in so many ways I honestly don't even know where to start.

Good start. All true.

Speaking of emulators and, more specifically, about platforms which have been around for decades and had all their chips decapped and studied at transistor level, if you make an emulator which runs fine for some games and has bugs/issues with others, you have messed it up.

Every single emulator (including all FPGA based emulators) use hacks. So, everyone has messed it up? That's extreme.

First of all, absolutely no video game system has been completely researched and photographed at a transistor level. AFAIK, the 6502 processor is the oniy component that has been (more or less) completely documented. That means dissolving the chip and photographing it layer by layer. The research hasn't been done.

Also, there aren't any affordable and conveniently sized options to completely implement a system on a true transistor level.

We don't have the hardware to do it. We don't have the documentation.

That's it.
It's not that "the game does strange things" or "was coded in an unusual way", it's because your understanding of how certain hardware works is lacking and/or you haven't coded it properly.

Sure, but I don't have the information or hardware to do it "properly" right now.

What happens in 99,99999999999999999999999999999% of the cases where someone finds a bug in a certain game, the coder just adds a handler to have that game working correctly, better known as a patch.
And, again, this is so wrong that I can't really find any words to justify such approach.

As hardware gets more powerful, we have the ability to emulate more accurately and "organically" derive proper behavior. In the meantime, everyone is using hacks.

If a game has a bug in your emulator, you don't make a patch, you get back to the drawing board and try to figure out what's wrong in your understanding of the hardware or the code you've written, because a game which runs flawlessly on original hardware MUST run in the exact same way on your emulator if you've done your work properly.

This is what happened with lots of emulators in the past: they became a jangled mess made of patches upon patches and it's no surprise their source code was never released, because you would have witnessed the worst kind of spaghetti code you've ever seen in your life (been there, done that, I preferred to start anew, from scratch).

Is that what happend? Or was it because we wanted something playable that hit frame rate on our hardware at the time?

So sick of spoiled children pissing on all the hard work emu devs poured in. You're not special, kids. You have better hardware available. You're not magic.

I really hope that all the people working on MiSTer cores are doing things properly and the bugs in the SNES code reported will lead the core's author investigating about what's wrong and not just make a patch to have those games working properly and call it a day.
Good thing everything is on Github so we can check ourselves what's been done (and how).

I already have the money ready for a MiSTer board and accessories (I/O, RAM, etc.) but I'll wait until the cores' code has reached a certain maturity.

And, just to make sure: this is not an attack to all the awesome people investing their time into making cores for the MiSTer, but rather a glimpse into what happened in the past to make sure such errors won't be repeated and, hopefully, to let us enjoy proper, cycle accurate emulation.

The people working on MISTer are doing the best they can with what they have available to them.

Also, cycle accurate is a reference to timing, not proper hardware behavior.