MiSTer FPGA Multi Console

[Phase]

We should probably have a thread for this since it looks like the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16/SuperGrafx hardware emulation is coming along nicely, these video are looking good at least.

[Phase]

Another new video showing more games in action.

[nectarsis]

ok I am le dumb....does this run CD/SCD games....how does it differ from a Pi setup?

[spenoza]

FPGAs are an attempt to simulate the original hardware in a hardware-based way. FPGAs are a bunch of programmable logic gates. Console hardware is a bunch of bits operating in parallel, and accuracy depends on respecting a lot of the timing involving different bits waiting for other bits and communicating back and forth. FPGAs can recreate that kind of parallelism in a way software emulation really can't as well. So FPGAs can hypothetically have better accuracy on much more humble hardware.

But for many more casual users, it really isn't that much different from a Pi setup.

[soop]

Wait, it says "arcade"... How much do I have to pay to get CPS2 on this deal?

[johnpv]

I do think this is pretty cool and interesting. I'm waiting to see how development goes in the arcade space, and the new upscaller. It might be worth it just for the better access/experience than mame for all the vertical shooters that never got a home port. Anyone whose toyed with it know if it has tate support?

[Phase]

Turbo/PCE CD support in the works. Here is the link to the post on RetroRGB-

retrorgb.com/mister-pc-engine-cd-turbografx-cd-begins.html

[ccovell]

*BUMP*

I'm a happy new owner of a MiSTer console; anyone here have one?

What messageboards are active for discussing it / talking about bug reports? If your answer is "Atari-Forum" do you have an account there? I tried signing up and got rejected by its sign-in process. Messages to the administrator go unanswered.

[dshadoff]

I don't own one, but I probably will before the end of the year...
But that's contingent on learning more about FPGA programming, and understanding what % of the FPGA is already used up by the existing PCE hardware definition.

[dshadoff]

Chris, just out of curiosity, where did you get yours ?
It seems that there aren't many consolidated sources for this stuff (the Terasic board is sold separately, and via a whole different company)

...If the hobby shops in Japan have a better integrated approach, I might consider getting one next time I'm in Japan, rather than piecemeal here (even though it's almost certainly more expensive in Japan).

Dave

[ccovell]

Mar 21, 2019 3:31:54 GMT dshadoff said:

Chris, just out of curiosity, where did you get yours ?

...If the hobby shops in Japan have a better integrated approach, I might consider getting one next time I'm in Japan, rather than piecemeal here (even though it's almost certainly more expensive in Japan).

I didn't even bother to check whether there were any integrated things in hobby shops in Japan; they would have charged through the nose anyway.  Fortunately, just at the right time, a new business named Mister Add-ons got mentioned to me.  So, that's where I got a whole stack built for me with a preloaded MiSTer SD card, and I could pay by PayPal.  I'd recommend his shop easily: good service and follow-up.  misteraddons.com/

I bought the powered USB hub and I/O board because I intended to hook the MiSTer up primarily through RGB 240p or VGA.  You need a custom cable (or a VGA cable with separated BNC plugs) to use 240p on a CRT monitor or somesuch.

[dshadoff]

I saw that place - it's good to know that they're decent to deal with. I'll keep it in mind once my electronics projects get sufficiently advanced.

How are you liking the MiSTer ? Which systems have you found to be "good enough" quality ?

As for discussing bug reports etc., I had seen a couple of GitHub accounts related to individual cores (should be possible to report bugs there), but it didn't seem to me to be a "community". You might want to see whether SmokeMonster is willing to involve you, as he seems to be one of the major information sources.

I would imagine that this stuff is right at the point where the "public" is learning of its existence, but the "public" probably isn't ready for it (so the developers don't want to have to daal with them). But your name should probably be familiar to a good part of the (software) emulation community, so I would imagine that you just have to find the right person to introduce you around. But they might want to you to contribute code... are you familiar with hardware definition languages ?

[ccovell]

Mar 23, 2019 1:51:40 GMT dshadoff said:

How are you liking the MiSTer ? Which systems have you found to be "good enough" quality ?
But they might want to you to contribute code... are you familiar with hardware definition languages ?

I'm very happy with the MiSTer... as Smokemonster said, it's worth it for the excellent MiniMig core alone.  I haven't tried all the cores, but I'll comment on the ones I have tried, in descending order of quality:

Amiga (MiniMig) - 88Mhz 68020 AGA emulation with 24 MB RAM -- a great replacement for my old MiniMig.

SNES - really awesome compatibility, sound emulation is rich and seems solid.  It supports many expansion chips too (DSP / FX)!

Sega Genesis - REALLY good graphics / FM sound emulation.  I haven't found a single bug yet.

Commodore 64 - you have to concatenate various Kernal/BASIC/Disk BIOS ROMs together into 1 file, which is a pain.  SID emulation is configurable between 6581 / 8580 per left/right speaker channel, and sounds fantastic.  Action Replay / Epyx cart image is a must to get fastloading working; otherwise it's "accurate" sloooow disk emulation.

NES - runs excellent, FDS disk and sound chip emulation is also correct.  The palette choice is not to my satisfaction.

Vectrex - no 240p but it runs quite well and has some good configuration options.

Pengo arcade - runs really nicely (tho it is a simple game/HW).

Turbografx 16 / SGX - noise emulation is incorrect, some BG scroll offset glitches in a couple games.  My own demos & games show this off, eg: HuZero background is offset wrong at the horizon, and Courage diskmag crashes on this core.  Some people have called this core almost perfect but it still needs some timing, VDC, and sound improvements.

Amstrad CPC - no CPC plus and there are compatibility / memory errors with some software.  A fun system to play with tho.  Concatenation of ROMs required here too.

GameBoy - No 240p mode, disappointingly, but runs stretched full-screen.

Commodore VIC-20 & PET - seem to run quite well.

Atari 800 - runs, looks nice, that's all I've tested so far.

BBC Micro - it's interlaced all the time (?) but seems to run OK.

Sega Master System / Game Gear - poor FM emulation, sprites appear 2 pixels to the right of where they are supposed to be, so this core still needs some work.

Moon Patrol arcade - runs in PAL 50Hz?  Anyway, emulates the game very well, but the game crashed on me once I got to Zone J.

Donkey Kong arcade - plays very well, but the H/Vblank timings seem incorrect in 240p -- the picture is offset to the right too far such that 40 pixels or so of the bottom of the playfield are offscreen!  It's more or less centred in VGA mode.

IBM PC (Ao486) - runs, but poor scaling even in standard VGA.  I couldn't get a hard drive image to work.  Apparently it's a 486 but only 11Mhz or so?

Arkanoid arcade -  has problems recognizing more than 2 USB devices, and the F12 menu never worked for me, despite other keyboard keys working.  The game emulation itself looks really good.

MSX - requires a 2nd SD card inserted into I/O board's SD slot, so I haven't tested it.  Concatenated BIOS files likely needed too.

I'm afraid that I have never touched HDLs in my life...

[dshadoff]

Chris, you mentioned that you didn't know much about HDLs (and neither did I), so I thought I'd tell you about a book and website which might be of interest to you.

I bought the very straightforward (and possibly simplistic) "Designing Video Game Hardware in Verilog" to take a bit of a shortcut to where I want to end up. I don't need to know everything about it, but it would be nice to learn established processes for computer-like constructs (addresses, registers, etc.) right off the bat.

The book is actually built around a free Verilog compiler/simulator written in Javascript on a webiste: 8bitworkshop.com which has a few different development sections - one of them being Verilog. Check it out if you aren't already familiar with it.

[Phase]

Some progress on PCECD.. This is from a few days ago, check the YT description for more info