MiSTer

McDermotX

Aye. The Top 300 DOS pack is one of the highlights just purely for the memories. Some titles have issues no doubt, but anyone who grew up with 386/486 builds will spent a lot of time with that core.

Use a Logitech K400 on one of my miSTer builds, but I echo the sentiment regarding mouse control with a number of the computer cores. It's handy having the trackpad for small things like menu selection or whatever, but it's not too long before you're reaching for a mouse option if you're actually playing something. Decent keyboard though, seem to recall some quirk whereby you had to hook it up to a PC with the Logitech software so as to set the top row of keys to function lock rather than the default media shortcuts, but it stays set once you hook it up to a miSTer. Might be some Linux way around it like with some keyboards to function lock it direct, but it's a very minor thing. Think there was another K400R that has dedicated F keys, but not personally tried it.

Keeping an eye on those 8bitdo keyboards in a few months as an option.

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120994805#Comment_120994805

Why does this read like a chatGPT output?

I haven't gone anywhere near the MiSTer PC core side of things. That top 300 DOS game pack looks absolutely brilliant. Check out Abuse towards the top, fantastic run and gun game with loose ties to Aliens and Predator that has a rather interesting keyboard and mouse control setup.

Doge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120994951#Comment_120994951

That looks like a hidden gem!

The mouse aiming vaguely reminds me of another DOS game called Ganja Farmer! 🤣

https://youtu.be/2rw6ZMAZAOA

So is misters FPGA chip capable of emulating a 486 processor, or is that handled by the Pi zero?

I was thinking the FPGA chip wouldn't be powerful enough to emulate something like an x86 processor.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120996142#Comment_120996142

No Pi involved here in any form, this is all based on the DE10. I think the core in question is the upper limit of what Mister can do, but yeah, it manages to run many of these DOS games amazingly well. The Top 300 pack curates them to a list, and boots the core to that list, select the game, and away you go.

o1s1n

Ganja Farmer! haha I haven't thought about that game in years. That was made by a guy called 'EvilX' games. He also had 'The Politically Incorrect Adventures of Gewt Ningrich' where you were around clubbing seals if I remember correctly.

Had a game in production called 'Jesus Christ Super Commando' but it was never finished.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120967886#Comment_120967886

Coincidence? I think not. Jotego clearly keeping an eye on @KeRbDoG

https://twitter.com/topapate/status/1692546753789133060?t=QlJrsUOlBvgJV7fTV1EWwg&s=19

KeRbDoG

From a quick check, the digitised audio in Jotego version seems a chunk better

80s Synth Pop

I was thinking that about furteks work on tmnt and jotegos team working on similar hardware.

Would Mister not benefit from a master project co-ordinator and a shared component library for devs to draw upon? Like the mame project. Seems to be that everything is independently developed in isolation by the different devs.

Surely jotego and furtek colaborting on a core would be a dream team instead of 2x takes on the same thing.

Inviere

Another step closer...

https://twitter.com/AzumFpg/status/1692867162875019720?t=2wycuNYrRx1fpYMdtIFytQ&s=19

Inviere

The N64 core continues to improve and amaze. Tested it myself there today, I didn't play anything, but just booted a couple of roms to revel in the amazement first hand...

^^ Mario Kart 64 & Starfox 64 booting and playing away. Obviously not perfect given the core is far from complete, but wow, to see them running is a joy.

All the info needed to get it running is here - https://vampier.net/N64/

^^ I then updated my Saturn core using a very handy updater script which pulls it from Github directly from the Mister itself. Sega Rally at full speed with music/sounds? Yes please! Again, all the info here - https://vampier.net/Saturn/

^^ (Apologies for the 16:9 abomination, this TV is the bedroom TV and I forgot to change the aspect ratio in the settings!) Only discovering this Favourites script now, you can Favourite specific cores/games and have them accessible from the Main screen. Definitely will spend some time configuring this as it removes a LOT of scrolling and button presses. You can set up different folders also to keep it all nice and neat/organised - https://github.com/wizzomafizzo/MiSTer_Favorites

o1s1n

That's a really cool function, I see you can also have one sub folder within the favourites section.

That'll be super handy an arcade machine. Can have a Shmup, Fighting, Run and Gun and Puzzle folder and then just fill each with games from across different cores.

o1s1n

Seriously dude thanks for putting me on to this. I've been screaming out for more of a user friendly front end type thing for when guests are over and this should do it. It's far more than just a favourites list.

No more endless scrolling trying to find games or loading up specific cores for people. Just straight into games!

Edit - I cannot overstate how cool this is.

If you sort them by genre you can literally have games of the same genre across consoles.

So you go into Shmups for example and can have everything from the arcade version of space invaders through all the 90s arcade Shmups, Megadrive, snes and PCE shmups and into PlayStation games like Einhander.

Same with fighting, all my neo Geo stuff with Capcom arcade games, and then the likes of Tekken 3 and 32 bit era games in the list.

No faffing between cores.

Inviere

I only briefly explored it as shown in my pics above man, but that's class. Did you manually do all this or is there a way to have it autopopulate based on genre etc?

Inviere

Development pace is hard to believe....

https://twitter.com/AzumFpg/status/1693703362217181244?t=ZY8wjgXZq2nL7o6yfzgqzg&s=19

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121009142#Comment_121009142

It's totally manual. So you can create a folder for each genre in favourites, the click 'add core to favourites' and start dropping games in one by one.

It's actually a very quick process as it's just a few button pressed to add a game and then it dumps you back into the games list to add the next game. I actually found it quite enjoyable!

KeRbDoG

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121009150#Comment_121009150

The no eye'd Mario - things nightmares are made of :D

Inviere

October 8th seemingly....

https://twitter.com/_atrac17/status/1693481727967297978?t=EUoJ0DRKESAmUoE0GK4ZMw&s=19

The bad news is, all these 'newer' Midway cores will be dual ram only, so digital IO board needed and no analogue out.

KeRbDoG

Wonder if (and I hope that) the dual ram initial need might be overcome in time

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121015035#Comment_121015035

Dylan Moran once said that every Irish person had a face that looked as if someone has told them they've won the lottery in one ear and that they only have 5 minutes left to live in the other ear.

That's exactly the face I pulled when I read that post! 😂 no Midway games for me if they're all digital only.

KeRbDoG

There was an suggestion that dual RAM was needed for the PSX core...but that turned out not to be the case. The same for the Saturn core but I don't have much experiance of that. Jag core maybe?

o1s1n

I honestly didn't even know you could add another stick of RAM with the digital IO board installed.

I see MisterAddons was working on a solution to get dual RAM going for analog out video but there doesn't seem to have been any update in two years.

With there finally being cores that require it though hopefully it will mean an acceleration in the project to make some kind of add on.

o1s1n

Anyone hear about this new FPGA 'MARS' system? (Multi Arcade & Retro System)

All a bit vague at the moment but it looks like we might potentially have a DE10 successor on the horizon.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MiSTerFPGA/comments/15ynesf/mister_successor_mars_fpga_teaser/

KeRbDoG

Oooo, I wonder on the cost/price. What new platforms might this open up or maybe more of the late 90's/early 00's arcade'ness HW

o1s1n

$700 is a figure has been bandied about a bit, which seems like a lot initially but when you actually add up the cost of a current DE10 based setup with a MiSTercade it's probably in and around the same price.

Yeah it'd be lovely to see something like this take up the torch and continue with more recent cores coming along. Have to wonder what would be possible with a bit more grunt under the hood.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121015553#Comment_121015553

Author says that's a hard no as I understand it.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121015623#Comment_121015623

Playstation core on single ram has 'measurable but imperceptible' audio issues in certain games, whereas on dual ram, they're perfect. Saturn has both single and dual options, but still early days in saying definitively if single ram will be ok. Jag potentially yeah, and more arcade cores on the horizon will be eyeing up dual ram.

Such an absolute shame that analogue out is lost in dual ram config.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121016963#Comment_121016963

Yeah very interesting. It clocks a LOT higher for a start, 400Mhz instead of 100Mhz for the DE10. 1GB DDR4 ram too. Seemingly 4 player SNAC etc is built in, among many other niceties. 4K60 output too, so no scaler needed.

Honestly it's all sounding quite exciting, a LOT of possibilities with this one.

Inviere

Well @o1s1n, the gods have provided...

https://twitter.com/collingall/status/1694463812936585509?t=TeQh_s_w3ZOKlNEyzjncjQ&s=19

Custom mister solution to get 15Khz analogue out from mister when using a digital IO board (and therefore dual ram). Mortal Kombat party at o1s1n's?

o1s1n

Great solution for folks with CRT TVs but unfortunately it wouldn't work for a MiSTercade setup in a cabinet! 😥

The MiSTercade itself is effectively the IO board so you'd need to remove it to attached the digital IO board instead.

I see there's talk of a revised MiSTercade that supports dual RAM. Perhaps the solution here is to put my current MiSTercade into my Pony cabinet for vertical games and then invest in the new board once it comes out for dual RAM goodness on the hori cabinet.

KeRbDoG

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121022267#Comment_121022267

Benefit of using direct video with the HDMI/VGA/YPbPr jobie is that the MiSTer can do rotation