MiSTer

CiDeRmAn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120418616#Comment_120418616

Back in the day you could use a second controller on the floor as an ad-hoc footpedal, and the mechanically minded could build their own with a breakout from the relevant buttons. They removed it for the PS3 light-gun titles, but it is present in the PS/2 games, as far as I recall

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120422682#Comment_120422682

Yep, fond memories of trying to use a toe to press the X button when Time Crisis 1 first came out 😁

Mucashinto

Thank you Jesus, been 4 days since I could get that working.

Getting a new PSU didn't fix anything, the IO Board and/or its bridge is the problem. Weird thing is it works when using the HDMI out so not sure what best to do long-term. For the moment I'm using a dongle and it does not feel good. Scant consolation but thanks o1s1n for the heads up on the micro-usb connector. My god is that thing feel fragile, does not look like it can take any weight at all. Permanently terrified of anything connected being moved in the slightest. Want to quickly get back to some kind of bridge connecter, even though I think the MiSTer does look a lot sleeker without an IO Board.

Setting up a controller there and I went in to some handheld cores. I'd bounced straight out of them when I tried them on the CRT for the first time - 'tHey LoOk lIkE pOstaGE sTaMPs lOL'. Don't know what I was thinking 🙄

Game Gear can look this good? Game Gear!?

GBA

This device is the greatest device ever to me. It's got all the greatest consoles, greatly...just great. What an absolute beast. Killer that the price has gone up so much, still worth every penny.

Inviere

Ah, so the game's afoot, eh?

https://twitter.com/AzumFpg/status/1646452662676619264

^^ What an achievement that'd be. From what I'd read, I didn't think the DE10 Nano was a big enough FPGA to support a theoretical N64 core.

Inviere

Footage is LLE based, which is incredible. Some people, absolute savants.

https://twitter.com/AzumFpg/status/1646501988157341696

o1s1n

Check this out! Irem M92 core has now been included in the update_all script.

Excited to try that out when I get home.

o1s1n

Has anyone tried adding in players 3 & 4 at all with a MiSTer? Is it just a matter of connecting up some 8bitdo wireless pads or the likes?

I was thinking potentially two people on the control panel as Player 1 & 2 and then two standing with 8bitdo wireless pads as players 3 & 4.

Had a few friends out on Saturday and we were on the machines for hours. Didn't really dawn on me to try out getting 4 player games going (I'm usually a 1 player loner so the thought never occurred to me!)

KeRbDoG

Believe it depends on the core but from their documentation - yup, connect up the controllers and then tap a button on each one in order of player 1-4+

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120496144#Comment_120496144

I did not actually know this is how MiSTer worked! - I'd be controlling the menu etc with player 1 on the arcade machine and then go to player 2, so it would just naturally configure the controls that way on boot every time.

Always wondered was the 'Reassign Players' option was in the menu, now that all makes sense.

Bit of frustration last night trying to get this sorted. So close... I changed the AVP core to allow 3 players and am able to coin up a third player on screen with an 8bitdo wireless pad which is pretty amazing to see, however the up and left D pad directions don't register anything.

Tried a three player game in Mega Bomberman in the Megadrive core with the multitap option switched on. Same thing, everything works apart from up and left on the 8bitdo D pad.

Bit more tinkering to do, but at least the proof of concept works, 3-4 player games are possible to get going on an arcade machine with MiSTercade. I can't get over how cool this thing is.

Inviere

The whole MiSTer thing is insanely cool. Even at the massively inflated post-covid prices for the DE10, it's somehow STILL a bargain. You're getting replicas of a vast array of hardware for such a comparatively small investment. Can you imagine the cost of all those gaming systems and arcade pcb's?

o1s1n

Before getting one I was a bit concerned about the return versus cost but it really is 100% worth every penny.

So much so in fact that I'm aiming to pick up another DE10 soon to stick in my Pony - I have a DE10 to Jamma adapter thingy that I got from Cathaldubin so have everything I need bar the DE10.

Have actually been quite taken aback by the amount of vertical games available in the arcade core list, should be brilliant!

KeRbDoG

If anyone is thinking of getting a MiSTer setup - I've IO boards+case up on the Marketplace if you plan on buying the parts individually

I think I need to tinker with my MiSTercade configs, certain cores drop into a freq which my Atomiswave SD doesn't seem to support. It's meant to be a tri-sync. When moving over to a MiSTercade, you are reminded that the analogue video output is raw - so most video options around rotating are ignored so no TATE cores on a YOKO setup :(

Inviere

Imagine being this skilled...

https://twitter.com/AzumFpg/status/1653712691951816704?t=mKgpb2DNeYciyKS8iZIJPg&s=19

o1s1n

Multiplayer Smash Bros on an arcade machine incoming, that's really going to be something else.

Still can't get over how productive the community is with this thing.

I was reading there about Jotego's work on the CPS 3 board. Apparently it'll take 15 months to trace everything, absolute madness. They reckon it actually might be too big a project to do and may need to come up with some alternative way of getting it traced.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120550556#Comment_120550556

I do wonder if it'll ask too much of the DE10. It's possible only some games will run, possible none will run, and possible the absolute mad lad will just land us a fully compatible N64 FPGA core. Even if the FPGA dream doesn't materialise, he's at least written a fully low level (yes, low level!) N64 emulator. Granted today's PC's can't run it at full speed (the footage is sped up), but in time that could become the next B-SNES.

o1s1n

Does make you wonder what is in store for the future of FPGA. What will a successor to the DE10 look like and will it be similar schematically so that you could potentially hook it up to existing MiSTer hats / accessories or are we talking a scratch build again?

Would it even be possible at all to create FPGA cores for hardware post the 5th generation of consoles or would it all just be far too time consuming?

I suppose there's more than enough to keep programmers busy in regards to arcade cores, I really hope the likes of Jotego keeps that up. Looks to be no sign of it stopping for now.

Inviere

I'd say it'll plateau, in that we'll reach a technological point that'll make it extremely difficult to make fpga cores for ever advancing machines. I mean, even if we had the FPGA horsepower, what are the chances of someone dropping a PS2 core for example? I imagine the complexity will just be beyond mere mortals at that point.

o1s1n

If it'll take one person 15 months to just trace out the custom chips and the rest on the CPS 3 hardware then yeah, you'd be talking teams of people to handle something like the PS2. The level of complexity really does start to exponentially ramp up.

TBH I'm happy with it ending in it's current form at the 5th generation. Coincidentally it's where most of my gaming interest with this kind of hardware ends too :)

Retr0gamer

I was talking to someone on twitter about the N64 FPGA core and apparently a lot of it will be high level emulation as the current mister FPGA just wouldn't be able to handle the N64 so looks like there's a tech limit there. I'd love to see PS2 emulated better someday but I'm reading through a tech piece that goes through each consoles architecture and the PS2 really is a different beast from everything else. It relies on two sub processors to accelerate 3D calculations and while the PS2 has a very limited amount of RAM, it relies on ultra fast transfers of data from the memory to these processors. The main CPU is a custom branch of a MIPS processor but the two co-processors are custom and probably not documented. The CPS3 is child's play in comparison.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120550708#Comment_120550708

I'm pretty much the same, my interests lie mostly on 5th gen and older.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120550896#Comment_120550896

Yeah i don't forsee anything beyond N64 on the DE10 based systems. It'd need a more complex fpga chip, specs, and a commercial level effort to go beyond it I think.

Even if the N64 core does indeed have software emulation compromises, we can rest assured that the software emulation side of it will be cycle accurate, and likely be the most authentic way to play beyond original hardware.

The Last Bandit

If you want the accurate emulation take a look at MetalNES, it emulates the NES at the transistor level so performance is probably in the hours per frame region but hey its a research project :)

bugs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120550629#Comment_120550629

Jotego is making somewhere in the region of ~20k a month from Patreon. I imagine he won't be going anywhere while he's making that much money.

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120553037#Comment_120553037

Mother of god, I was thinking it was just a hobby side thing he was doing - money like that you could easily employee a few people to help out with the more menial bits of work.

bugs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120553377#Comment_120553377

Funnily enough, that is what he has done. He has at least 1 person working for him.

geotrig

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120553377#Comment_120553377

haha o1s1n , the innocence of it 😃

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120553502#Comment_120553502

That's incredible and it's amazing to think really that so many people are interested in the project to the point where that's even possible. Does make me very hopeful for the future of arcade core releases.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120553644#Comment_120553644

Haha I know right? The peak of my interest in collecting and playing older games was about ten years ago, only really been getting back into it properly in the last two years and I'm absolutely blown away by the level of money people are making from Patreon/Youtube and how many devices and professional adds ons, flash carts etc have been released.

Back in those days it was all really hobbiest level stuff.

Even new games being released for older consoles now, it's mad. I remember when Beggar Prince was released for the Megadrive by Super Fight Team around 2006 and that was seen as such a bizarre and big deal at the time. Wouldn't even blink if it was released today.

geotrig

i think when people started trying to make money out of other peoples hobby work left a bad taste to be fair..... the money being made these days as you say with patreon and "bounties" 😔 is on another level though. i suppose its this generations bedroom programmers in a way

Inviere

Another corker on the way....

https://twitter.com/topapate/status/1654768183021109248?t=Krc0VmefMJcSF_chZwSxgQ&s=19

80s Synth Pop

Are the mister devs all independently developing away individually or I'd there a central reviewer that checks code review standards and commits the final core to a central repository?

Take the recent konami cores. Developer Furrtek has developed the turtles core himself and jotego is doing the simpsons. Do they share the same code base or they completely independent and different cores with different standards?