Where did NEC go wrong with the PC Engine?

[Where did NEC go wrong with the PC Engine?]

It failed in France too, even if it had an official distributor (Sodipeng) and some minor ads on magazines on early 1998.
Price-wise it was about the same as a SNES but the games were expensive.

There was never a "European" version though; the machines were Japanese imports replacing the RF by an AV/SCART mod.

It all ended when Sodipeng bankrupted in 1993 if (I'm not mistaken), it was too hard to compete with the Genesis and SNES at that point.

 

Some ads can be seen here: https://necretro.org/Sodipeng

 

[New OSSC successor in development]

Nice to see an upgrade, the OSSC was good but not as feature complete as an XRGB-Mini in some areas.

I'm not fully convinced of its viability as a game console; but no doubt some open-source cores can be made to be run on it, and that's a nice bonus.

 

 

 

 

[MiSTer FPGA]

With the release of the AY-3-8500 core (which powered several pong game consoles), MiSTer now has over 120 official cores!

 

That does not include some of the unofficial cores which are still in development, such as the Intellivision or Arduboy cores, or the JT Arcade cores.

There are about 50 computer and console cores, plus 70+ arcade cores (counting the multi game arcade cores as one).

 

Full arcade list is here: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki/Arcade-Cores-List

And you can see the full list of official computer and console cores in the side bar at the right.

 

 

 

 

[Retroblox]

The emulation-in-a-box market is already very saturated, and flooded with sub-standard devices. 

 

This is promising if it can read original CDs, but for carts I feel that a Retro Freak fills the niche very well.

 

That is if they manage to release something. It's been a while since this is talked about.

[Athena: A new old game console ;)]

What you describe is already being done with MiSTer (open hardware, with some resellers having boxed full setups).
 

I can imagine many people being interested in a case that works both for MiSTer and your setup.
That said - it doesn't have to fit the MiSTer framework necessarily; just perhaps being pin compatible with the hardware so both software stacks can be used.

 

There is now an Arduboy core, by the way:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MiSTer FPGA]

For now the only benefit of 128MB is a few Neogeo titles, but if you're into fighters, those titles are among the best in the system.

If you don't mind those then it's always possible to get 32MB until you absolutely need to upgrade.
 

 

[Athena: A new old game console ;)]

Do you want to make it commercial, or are you happy with creating a free standard and developing a community around it?

 

The latter seems more viable to me, since otherwise you would be competing with different things (e.g. game making tools that are multi platform, and separately, original consoles).

Another alternative (but not what you are after per se) would be to implement a hardware version of something like BennuGD, reusing existing projects.

[Athena: A new old game console ;)]

You may want to make it a MiSTer core, that will give you an audience that can easily test your games.

[Athena: A new old game console ;)]

I think you may be overestimating developer interest. What advantage would somebody have using this over programming for a Neogeo?  You could even write all that toolset for a Neogeo instead.

[MiSTer FPGA]

7 hours ago, seastalker said:

What's the latest with the IO boards? I have one that included the 32mb ram so I can't use it with my newer 128mb ram for neogeo that takes up the GPIO pins. Should I get a replacement now, or will I kick myself again when a newer board revision gets released? 

Official IO boards do not include SDRAM. Some sellers made unofficial versions that combine them, but they throw away the upgradability.

 

I would buy an official IO board and separate SDRAM. 

[MiSTer FPGA]

The Amiga and ao486 cores can get a bit unstable without a fan, resulting in some bit of "snow" random pixels on screen.  But other than that I had no issues whatsoever. You won't melt your DE10-Nano...

[When does a system become "Retro"?]

Was emulation big on Vita? That could explain that retro fanbase. The GP2X consoles had a similar following, even though they had native games as well (mostly homebrew though).

[Retron Jr.]

Its a shame that we never saw an update of the Retro Freak. I vastly preferred it over the Retrons.

[FPGA Based Videogame System]

13 hours ago, pedroTFP said:

Is there any proper buglist or "core completion status" about MisTer cores?

Yes. Bugs are tracked on github for each core.

 

Comparisons to the Mega SG and SNT has been made but it's hard to discuss objectively because some take it as an attack to their favorite platform.

 

I will summarize that both MiSTer and Analogue cores for those machines are excellent, but with some slightly different choices and priorities of fixes. As a result one is better in some areas than the other,  and the opposite is true for other areas.

 

I personally think it's a false dichotomy. A full MiSTer setup is cheaper than an SNT + SD2SNES, so one might as well get one and then get the Analogue machines for which you'd want carts or a nicely packaged replacement of the original machine (but single core).

[MiSTer FPGA]

The GBA core now supports save states:

 

 

[FPGA Based Videogame System]

8 hours ago, zetastrike said:

There's no guarantee another cheap yet very powerful dev board will be available to replace it. 

MiSTer has already been ported to three other boards: http://modernhackers.com/mister/

[MiSTer FPGA]

On 12/13/2019 at 2:58 AM, derFunkenstein said:

"in the pipeline" according to this. Sega CD RAM cart, too, which is awesome.

 

 

Ah, that's about a specific recent change. I see what he means.

 

There was an improvement of the search paths for ROM folders to give priority to USB drives over local storage. Long story short, that means you automatically open the relevant folders in USB drive first if they exist.

 

In practice that means you can have a local library of games with a few chosen titles, and then plug a USB to suddenly have access to the whole library in the same "load ROM" dialogue.

 

[MiSTer FPGA]

Isn't USB storage already supported?

[MiSTer FPGA]

But why? You can just mount a network drive to access a large collection of CD images.

 

If you really want the illusion though, a USB connector for USB storage would be the way to go. That already works and you just need to make a cool case for it and the "cart".

 

I suppose you could build a hub that exposes one of its USB ports as a cartridge slot. It would have a niche appeal beyond MiSTer, I think.

[MiSTer FPGA]

18 hours ago, mr_me said:

Otherwise they can be used as usb ports but you already have other usb ports on the board.

(...)

is there any perceptable or measureable difference over using a usb controller.

What I mean is that those two HDMI ports still function as a (good) USB adapter for original controllers, and that has value in itself over a regular USB hub.

 

Controller latency is a complex and highly debated topic, and whether you yourself will notice any lag can be highly subjective. People are dedicating entire websites to the topic: https://inputlag.science/faq

 

The way I'd summarize is this:

1) Latency exists in original hardware too, so the question is one of relative difference  

2) Any controller with more than 16.66ms latency (1 frame at 60fps) will show definite lag

3) Latency isn't always fixed, it can vary randomly.

 

The lag question really is whether your button press will be read on time to not miss a frame. Here are some results on USB devices: https://inputlag.science/controller/results

 

The low latency mode you refer to was designed to synchronize itself to the internal core polling, so it is highly unlikely to miss a frame. So yes, there is a measurable advantage (with an oscilloscope), but for many (and probably most) people USB polling at 2ms is enough to not notice any difference.

 

[MiSTer FPGA]

18 hours ago, mr_me said:

Cores have to modified to use the two low latency controller ports on the blisster board.

That's not exactly right; those ports can still be used and the board acts as a USB adapter.

 

There is, on top of that, an unofficial serial communication mode that cores can support, and a few cores have been tweaked experimentally in an separate git repository.

[MiSTer FPGA]

21 hours ago, mr_me said:

How much input lag is there with USB controllers.

It varies wildly depending on controller model.

 

Only a few tests were done so far but for example the 8bitdo M30 BT in wired mode (i.e. using USB) is slower than the M30 2.4 in wired mode. 

 

Experimentation is underway to overclock the USB stack to poll much faster at 4ms or lower. 4ms seems to work with everything but some controllers have trouble responding faster than that.

 

That is less an issue of MiSTer than the controller themselves, though.

[MiSTer FPGA]

5 hours ago, Keatah said:

Or you can make a cartridge slot out of cardboard and glue it atop the MiSTer and pretend..

That's actually a great idea for a case...

[MiSTer FPGA]

The new core is working great... and I am a pretty big fan of the fastforward function. 

 

I think functionality wise, it has surpassed the Retro Freak? I don't recall if the RF could load ISOs for Mega CD and PCE CD.

["in focus: 3-D Video Gaming" - 1988 Electronic Game Player article]

I was hoping somebody had an obscure link of a mini 3D display that could be bought... but I suppose the only option right now is a VR headset 🙁