MiSTer FPGA board

[Gunstar]

Finally got my mister setup, really loving the Genesis composite blend (CB) mode on 320x224 games (too blurry for 256x224 games imo). It sort of has a similar look to RGB output on a 2-chip SNES or modded N64, clean yet a little soft.
Gunstar with CB

SoR2 with CB

[bigbadboaz]

Simulating the Model 1 output, eh?

[Gunstar]

Simulating the Model 1 output, eh?

Is the Model 1 stock RGB soft? I'm not too familiar with the differences between Model 1 and 2 RGB (or Composite for that matter) output differences.

[fernan1234]

There's also an option to set the composite blending only to patterns that need it and not the whole picture. For the cases when it can't get it 100% right you may want the full picture blending though.

[bigbadboaz]

Is the Model 1 stock RGB soft? I'm not too familiar with the differences between Model 1 and 2 RGB (or Composite for that matter) output differences.

The Model 1 composite output itself is notoriously soft. You know, the whole "Genesis developers used dithering because they KNEW composite video would blend it together and create new colors!" thing. I would guess this is why a "composite blend" feature was created.

[Gunstar]

Is the Model 1 stock RGB soft? I'm not too familiar with the differences between Model 1 and 2 RGB (or Composite for that matter) output differences.

The Model 1 composite output itself is notoriously soft. You know, the whole "Genesis developers used dithering because they KNEW composite video would blend it together and create new colors!" thing. I would guess this is why a "composite blend" feature was created.

I had no idea, appreciate you sharing that info! I used RF as a kid and when I returned to these older consoles I went straight to RGB and was only aware of jailbars and audio differences between models. I see devs for other consoles also made use of composite blending but perhaps not to the same degree as on the MD/Genesis. I'm now wondering how the soft SNES 2-chip RGB handles dithering...

@fernan1234 - Adaptive CB is a good idea and works well for Sonic 1 but it wouldn't blend some patterns (something to do with sprite order?) for Shinobi 3 and SoR2. I'm okay with giving up some sharpness though, it still looks great and for some parts of the art it actually helps with making it feel more organic than RGB e.g muscles in SoR characters look more rounded and natural. I do miss the crispy HUD and text though.

[bigbadboaz]

If the subject interests you, just google something like "Sega models video quality". There are SEVERAL extensive writeups, such as a long thread on Sega-16.

[Gunstar]

If the subject interests you, just google something like "Sega models video quality". There are SEVERAL extensive writeups, such as a long thread on Sega-16.

Thanks, I think I might.

[cave hermit]

I do love my MiSTer, but I do wish some of the arcade cores had more polish on them. The golden age arcade cores in particular all seem to have one issue or another (Donkey Kong and DK Jr. rotate your controls when you tate, Frogger's music speeds up after getting a frog home, Mario Bros. is crash prone, etc.).

That said, Jotego's CPS1 core seems to work a charm, and the upcoming Dodonpachi core is quite exciting! Never really had much issues with the console cores either.

Right now, I think the MiSTer is a good dedicated retro box, but with more time and development, it will become the definitive retro machine for everything up to the PS1.

[ldeveraux]

I do love my MiSTer, but I do wish some of the arcade cores had more polish on them. The golden age arcade cores in particular all seem to have one issue or another (Donkey Kong and DK Jr. rotate your controls when you tate, Frogger's music speeds up after getting a frog home, Mario Bros. is crash prone, etc.).

That said, Jotego's CPS1 core seems to work a charm, and the upcoming Dodonpachi core is quite exciting! Never really had much issues with the console cores either.

Right now, I think the MiSTer is a good dedicated retro box, but with more time and development, it will become the definitive retro machine for everything up to the PS1.

I wish it had a fancy frontend that I could control with a controller like RetroPie. Unless that's a thing now?

[cave hermit]

Well depending on how you would define frontend, I guess MiSTer has one, but it is very spartan; just a menu in a small box in the middle of the screen. It is totally navigable with a gamepad though, as far as I can tell you only really need a keyboard if you haven't setup any controller bindings yet, if you're setting up a controller that is missing certain inputs, or if you want to play certain computer cores.

[Bassa-Bassa]

I do love my MiSTer, but I do wish some of the arcade cores had more polish on them. The golden age arcade cores in particular all seem to have one issue or another (Donkey Kong and DK Jr. rotate your controls when you tate, Frogger's music speeds up after getting a frog home, Mario Bros. is crash prone, etc.).

That said, Jotego's CPS1 core seems to work a charm, and the upcoming Dodonpachi core is quite exciting! Never really had much issues with the console cores either.

Right now, I think the MiSTer is a good dedicated retro box, but with more time and development, it will become the definitive retro machine for everything up to the PS1.

Too many fans of Mortal Kombat instead of, say, the Taito F3 games will hinder a lot the development of MiSTer's arcade emulation, if you know what I mean. Hopefully it (FPGAs, in general) gets more popularity in Japan sooner than later.

[fernan1234]

Too many fans of Mortal Kombat instead of, say, the Taito F3 games will hinder a lot the development of MiSTer's arcade emulation, if you know what I mean. Hopefully it (FPGAs, in general) gets more popularity in Japan sooner than later.

The project could definitely gain from more Japanese devs and contributors. There's been only one consistently active Japanese dev I know of (puu), who has made WIP X68000 and PC88 cores, and is in early work for a PC98 core. Oh the MSX core was also by a Japanese dev, though it was Sorg and others who made it more usable later.

On the other hand you have devs like Jotego who seem able to produce very capable cores for Japanese hardware (last time I heard he has plans for his own X86000 core).

[orange808]

I do love my MiSTer, but I do wish some of the arcade cores had more polish on them. The golden age arcade cores in particular all seem to have one issue or another (Donkey Kong and DK Jr. rotate your controls when you tate, Frogger's music speeds up after getting a frog home, Mario Bros. is crash prone, etc.).

That said, Jotego's CPS1 core seems to work a charm, and the upcoming Dodonpachi core is quite exciting! Never really had much issues with the console cores either.

Right now, I think the MiSTer is a good dedicated retro box, but with more time and development, it will become the definitive retro machine for everything up to the PS1.

Too many fans of Mortal Kombat instead of, say, the Taito F3 games will hinder a lot the development of MiSTer's arcade emulation, if you know what I mean. Hopefully it (FPGAs, in general) gets more popularity in Japan sooner than later.

Which MISTer devs are posting polls and choosing projects based on a democracy model? Or, are you saying MISTer devs have poor taste?

Just one or two passionate F3 fans would be enough to make a core. It's got nothing to do with games you personally dislike.

[Bassa-Bassa]

I'm not sure if he's considered a "MiSTer dev" given his off-site policies, but Jotego, indeed. He's stated more than once that his patreons majorly dictate his focus, and that they ask for the Mortal Kombats enough as to make of them his next project after the CPS2.

That of course sucks not just because the Mortal Kombats are terrible and you can't think of anybody trying to play them seriously, but because they have currently very good emulation in Mame while stuff like the F3 games do not and seemingly never will, so they could benefit from new people with the skills (or could not, I'm aware, there's the Contra case by Jotego himself which has the same issues as Mame because there's not enough interest in those damned Konami chips).

Anyway, in my eyes, yeah, the MiSTer project needs more people like Jotego and less fans with shitty, nostalgic tastes.

[Konsolkongen]

Would the Mister be powerful enough to run CPS3 games? And can it output at 960p?

[cave hermit]

I feel like CPS3 might be a little too much, but then again who knows? People weren't sure if Neo Geo could be done on it, and we've got a great Neo Geo core now!

I'm sure you could probably force a custom video mode for 960p output in the ini file, although you would have to know *exactly* what you want for all the parameters.

Spoiler

Code: Select all

; 0 - 1280x720@60
; 1 - 1024x768@60
; 2 - 720x480@60
; 3 - 720x576@50
; 4 - 1280x1024@60
; 5 - 800x600@60
; 6 - 640x480@60
; 7 - 1280x720@50
; 8 - 1920x1080@60
; 9 - 1920x1080@50
;10 - 1366x768@60
;11 - 1024x600@60
;12 - 1920x1440@60
;13 - 2048x1536@60
;
; custom mode: hact,hfp,hs,hbp,vact,vfp,vs,vbp,Fpix_in_KHz
;   video_mode=1280,110,40,220,720,5,5,20,74250
video_mode=0

Alternatively, if you output 1080p, you could activate integer scaling in the ini, although personally I don't use exact integer scaling (I use 0.5 scale steps to get a slightly larger picture) so I don't know if that would be 960 pixels with pure integer scaling at 1080p.

[slai50]

If you run SCUMMVM and Gameboy Advance core on a mister connected to a BVM-20F1U, will there be black borders around the picture or will it be fullscreen?

[ldeveraux]

Anyone else have a real bear of a time setting up the MiSTer? I've done it 3 times over a couple of years now. Inevitably something always cocks up and I have to start over from scratch. This time I setup, changed the video settings now black screen whenever I select a core or script. Is the SD card the issue here? 128GB Samsung EVO, should be good, setup with the Mr Fusion setup method.

[ZellSF]

I had no problems setting it up. There's one thing that's confusing me though. The last line of the picture is really misaligned on my TV. Setting vscale_border=1 fixes it so it isn't a big deal, but weird since I thought the MiSTer would use a pretty standard video signal (for menus at least). Anyone knows what that might be?

[Bassa-Bassa]

If you run SCUMMVM and Gameboy Advance core on a mister connected to a BVM-20F1U, will there be black borders around the picture or will it be fullscreen?

I remember myself asking here if the GBA core has a mode to keep the system's native resolution and I got a positive answer. And if you keep the GBA resolution at 15khz you just can't fill the screen vertically no matter what, it's like 160 pixels high. And for the better, you didn't have 4:3 originally.

[ldeveraux]

Turns out I was using a 1A PSU which was bad news. Now using a 2A with 100% success!

[Konsolkongen]

I feel like CPS3 might be a little too much, but then again who knows? People weren't sure if Neo Geo could be done on it, and we've got a great Neo Geo core now!

I'm sure you could probably force a custom video mode for 960p output in the ini file, although you would have to know *exactly* what you want for all the parameters.

Spoiler

Code: Select all

; 0 - 1280x720@60
; 1 - 1024x768@60
; 2 - 720x480@60
; 3 - 720x576@50
; 4 - 1280x1024@60
; 5 - 800x600@60
; 6 - 640x480@60
; 7 - 1280x720@50
; 8 - 1920x1080@60
; 9 - 1920x1080@50
;10 - 1366x768@60
;11 - 1024x600@60
;12 - 1920x1440@60
;13 - 2048x1536@60
;
; custom mode: hact,hfp,hs,hbp,vact,vfp,vs,vbp,Fpix_in_KHz
;   video_mode=1280,110,40,220,720,5,5,20,74250
video_mode=0

Alternatively, if you output 1080p, you could activate integer scaling in the ini, although personally I don't use exact integer scaling (I use 0.5 scale steps to get a slightly larger picture) so I don't know if that would be 960 pixels with pure integer scaling at 1080p.

Thanks! I only want integer scaling preferably with slight bilinear blur on the x-axis for CPS games if possible to remove all stuttering

[cave hermit]

Not sure if there's axis specific blurring, but there is quite a large selection of filters and interpolation options using the HDMI scaler, I'm sure there's something in there that would fit what you're looking for.

[Elrinth]

I'm looking into trying out one of these, especially for MSX/2 and X68000 games. How are those two cores doing at the moment? Has anyone heard anything about the possibilities of an NEC PC98 core?

And does any keyboard plugged through USB work on the Mister? I only have a Mac keyboard, would be nice if it works.

PC98 core is now a reality!
https://twitter.com/_atrac17/status/1347051729381175298

I wish I owned MiSTER now so I could also try it!

[fernan1234]

I'm looking into trying out one of these, especially for MSX/2 and X68000 games. How are those two cores doing at the moment? Has anyone heard anything about the possibilities of an NEC PC98 core?

And does any keyboard plugged through USB work on the Mister? I only have a Mac keyboard, would be nice if it works.

PC98 core is now a reality!
https://twitter.com/_atrac17/status/1347051729381175298

I wish I owned MiSTER now so I could also try it!

Sounds like it's still not quite ready yet but it's an important step forward! BTW, have been on the MiSTer train ever since the Neo Geo core was released, it's been great.

[BrianC]

I recently hopped on the mister train too. I like the MSX core quite a bit, though trying to find which MSX1 games work is a pain (it seems a few of the ones included in the VHD are bad dumps). Finally got Burger Time working. Nice port! Definitely like the NeoGeo and the new Capcom cores quite a bit.

[Udderdude]

Really need to get on the FPGA train one of these days.

[dreadnought]

Has anybody managed to display Atari ST / PCW cores on a CRT TV properly? These two won't work on my setup (Direct Video), some other people's also, but I've heard others had more luck.

[Osirus]

Has anybody managed to display Atari ST / PCW cores on a CRT TV properly? These two won't work on my setup (Direct Video), some other people's also, but I've heard others had more luck.

I believe its because they output a 31kHz signal.