Newsdee

Same goes for Steam. Sometimes I wonder if I should start a "one game a day" marathon so as to at least try them all...

The Neogeo core is still under develolment and the memory needs may still change. At least, I can tell you the latest beta build already runs most games with only 32MB. One thing that may not be obvious (it wasn't for me) is that "OTG" is just a fancy name for hubs that plug to micro USB directly. You can also use any regular hub with a micro USB to full USB adapter (USB-A), which is basically an "OTG adapter cable". If you feel the price of the MiSTer is high, you can start skipping a case and use the 8GB SD card that comes with the DE10 Nano. Plus get an OTG adapter cable to reuse any old USB hub you may have. A few cores run without SDRAM, but I do recommend to get that board to run all MiSTer cores. All in total would cost you $150 to $160 (plus shipping) before you spend more into it. Hope that helps clarify some things amd make it easier to start.

If I remember correctly the older SD2SNES had a Xilinx Spartan 3E at 8K LE. The newer Pro models have a bigger Altera Cyclone IV. I'm having a hard time finding a goog pic of it, so I can't read the exact chip model (which would tell us how many LEs it has). That said it doesn't seem the extra capacity is being used, yet.

I'm not sure there is any value added to make it a custom board. What problem does that solve? I started following FPGA tech for gaming in 2013 when I got a MiST. Back then, the cheapest FPGA development board was about $350 and didn't even have USB connections. There were some FPGA computer clones already, but Till Harbaum's MiST stood out as the cheapest (about $220) and had very convenient USB ports for keyboards and gamepads. The others had PS2 and could only handle DB9 joysticks. There were three main caveats with MIST: the FPGA reached full capacity with some later cores, there was no way to give it a good native HDMI output, and it remained a bit obscure in the broader FPGA developer community, so new devs appeared only sporadically. Then the DE10 came out as a low cost but powerful FPGA dev board for students and universities. It solved the three major issues of the MiST: the FPGA is huge, it comes with USB and HDMI out of the box, and there are now plenty of devs who already own the board and may stumble upon MiSTer later on. And to top it all off, it manages to be cheaper than a MiST (that is fully custom made). In a way it's like a PC.... generic purpose hardware that the community has customized in ways that would not be possible with a commercial product.

It does not need hyperbole. A lot of negative comments are from people who haven't tried it or have misconceptions about it, e.g. thinking it's just another RPi. It is not a commercial project. What this actually is, is a community of people building their own hardware for retro gaming for the fun of it. I think that is super awesome to both witness and participate in it. The "finished product" isn't perfect but there isn't anything like it either (especially at the price point). It does keep improving, and already works great even if you can't be bothered with the advanced features.

The NT Mini may be a special case, because it was done at a premium price, and the market for it is more saturated. Whoever wanted an FPGA NES and couldn't get a Mini probably got themselves an AVS by now. Of course there is the JB FW with all the extra cores, but that's unofficial and at $500 bucks I can't see it selling well. Now, if they manage to produce a cheaper Mini at a similar price as the NES Classic, that would definitely catch the attention of a lot of people. Not sure if margins for that would make sense commercially, though.

After installing the SD and testing video is working, I recommend adding the updater script: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Updater_script_MiSTer If your MiSTer is connected to the network (which you can see by it showing an IP in the OSD menu), it will download all the latest cores, the latest script utilities, cheat codes for consoles, etc.

The screen is really too small for arcade games. Having a tiny cute arcade cabinet is one thing and has some novelty and shwlf decoration value, but for long term play one needs a bigger screen.

I wonder if it's the arcade ROM, or a Genesis on a chip. Does anybody know?

I wonder if they can be custom made. It would depend on whether the cart connectors can be found easily, and whether they have any special electronics inside it (or is just wiring).

After looking at older threads, I went with the suggestion to create a dedicated MiSTer thread (as there wasn't one). Feel free to ask any questions about it there: We also have a generic thread for any FPGA system (linked above)

There are some upcoming features and cores which may bring more attention to MiSTer, so I think it's time to create a dedicated thread for it. MiSTer is not a monolithic project, but a framework where several developers collaborate for its expansion. Keeping up with latest changes and experimental work can be daunting for newcomers, but it is rather exciting. At the same time, setting up a MiSTer and running the stable cores is very straightforward, about the same complexity as setting up an Everdrive. Many are willing to help and the wiki is expanded regularly. I will start with a few useful links to help newcomers. To start you only need the DE10 board and an SDRAM expansion. The rest can be added later if you need it (e.g. analogue video etc). Official wiki (start here): https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki Official forums: http://www.atari-forum.com/viewforum.php?f=117 Terasic webpage for the DE10-Nano: (you can get one from here) https://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?Language=English&CategoryNo=205&No=1046&PartNo=1 Amazon page for the DE10-Nano (also from Terasic, but may have cheaper shipping https://www.amazon.com/Terasic-Technologies-P0496-DE10-Nano-Kit/dp/B07B89YHSB/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?keywords=de+10+nano&qid=1564700785&s=gateway&sr=8-3 List of add-on resellers: (only the SDRAM is needed if you just want HDMI) http://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=117&t=33613&sid=9b2da79f8a9ceded1030f7cbdee8271a

MiSTer is actually a PCB kit more than anything else. It was built as add-ons to a commercial board (DE10 Nano) supporting a OSS framework, but it is not exclusive to it. At least a couple of persons ported the framework and a habdful of cores to other boards.(eg DE0). Those boards are pricier or have other caveats (smaller FPGA, no HDMI, etc) so they remain niche. For the layman these are irrelevant, it's easier to tell people to get the cheaper board, but that also means MiSTer (or a descendant project) will outlive the DE10 supply drying up. If that ever happens, because that board is popular with university courses.

Yes, but I don't know how to edit it. There both 49K and 110K LE systems now.

It already exists:

It will be interesting to see the next move by Analogue. PCE CD is infamous for failing hardware and prices of working units keep going up. A modern version would make collecting for it much more accessible, so will likely sell pretty well. I can also see a consolized GBA/GBC/GB being popular given how many units were sold between the three devices, even if it is not portable. Bonus points if they (/Kevtris) manage to run two together for link play on the same TV. Neogeo would probably allow charging a higher price, so maybe better margins, but they may sell less units.

Yes, absolutely. Cart support will also be exclusive as nobody is interested in that for other FPGA systems (except the AVS). A Turbo NC would complete the picture, but it would be awesome if they go for Neogeo and allow 3rd party cores. I expect that could command a higher price and so make it feasible to use a bigger FPGA (in other words, let the community bring their own.cores as well).

These systems were originally hyped as multi cores and capable of playing ROMs, like the Mini NT. So it shouldn't be a surprise some people ask and discuss about those features. The Analogues are best in class for cartridge-based gameplay and I'm glad they exist. But let's stop pretending it's something else. I think it's fair to say that if you want to play ROMs, then these consoles need to be coupled with a SD2SNES/MegaSD.

In my experience many modern TVs do a crappy job upscaling their own composite input. It became obvious when I tried upscaling my composite consoles via an XRGB and got a much better image. So I prefer HDMI nowadays, and give the job to upscale to the source device/console. If they do a poor job with it (e.g. Pandora's Boxes) then I am automatically less interested. TL;DR: composite could be decent, but it is stifled by cheap electronics in modern TVs.

This thread was originally about the vision of a Zimba3000 FPGA device that could run multiple systems. That is not the SNT or MSG, by design. And the original NT mini is no longer available. So I think it is relevant to bring up an alternative, especially when there seems to be misinformation and animosity about said item (for some reason). This isn't the console wars.

NES, C64, ZX Spectrum, Atari 5200/800XL and Gameboy/GBC are also really good. NES can use a wiimote as zapper. The TG16 core supports SuperGrafx (but no CD yet). There are also many arcade cores which work great such as Ghost and Goblins, 1942, 1943, Defender, Robotron, Pacman (and variants), etc. On the prototype/experimental side, somebody got the GB core to run 2 instances side by side and run Tetris for two players (virtual link cable). It doesn't support larger games yet, so it has not been merged into the main code, but I find it a really neat idea.

Granted, some of this is still WIP with the risk that entails. The first one (SNAC) is already being built and used by a few different people, at least. To be fair I don't expect people who do not follow MiSTer to be aware of them. I suppose the message should be that these negative comments that pop up are being felt by others and the platform is being expanded. I wouldn't be surprised if one day somebody tries to port one or more of the MISTer cores to a Analogue system as custom JB firmware. A full port of all functionality is not possible (different FPGA sizes and surrounding hardware), but the same Quartus compiler can target both chips.

If you only have Pong... you'll end up inventing a new system to play something better on.

I suspect the console wars is fueled by a scarcity mentality, since parents would normally only buy kids one system (if they buy anything at all). People tend to feel personally attacked if what they invested in financially and emotionally gets under criticism (either direct or implied by comparison). I'm not sure how we got from that to the bad image of gamer dudebros and associated behavior. The only analogy I can think of is that some games are closer to sports (hence eSports) and some gamers are basically jocks who engage in "locker talk" and other questionable behaviors associated with toxic masculinity. Perhaps it's the focus on game as competive sports that is the issue. In other words, "gamers" are automatically assumed to be competing with each other to prove who is the best. Companies fan that sentiment because it sells products in the same way as sports (e.g. shoes that allegedly make you play better, etc). It's a narrative the marketing people are already familiar with. But games are more than that (and all sport is not always competition with others). Nintendo seems to get it by always trying to also cater to other social aspects of gaming.

The feature is two weeks old already: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/NES_MiSTer/pull/117 You can even use an original Zapper with a CRT. It's not yet widely documented as it is only available for specific cores (NES and SNES). There is also a broader solution in the works, LLCoolJoy: https://www.retrorgb.com/mister-ll-cool-joy-ultra-low-latency-controller-board-update.html And special support for the BlissBox: https://bliss-box.net/support/ That's three different alternatives to the USB stack if it is not to your liking. They are upcoming, but definitely exist. Meanwhile, the Neogeo core is making huge progress, MSU-1 support is being added to the SNES core, and VDP code for Genesis Virtua Racing was licensed by Terraonion for the MegaSD (and earlier, they also licensed code for a cycle accurate 68k CPU used in MiSTer cores). Say what you will, but work that several people put on MiSTer is benefiting the whole retro community (even if they don't own one), and I think that deserves mention.