Here's a simple quick no frills guide to setting up a MiSTer, experienced users, please feel free to correct me if I've given incorrect steps, or with anything you think that needs to be added:
Aside from the main MiSTer hardware of your choice (I personally recommend: a DE-10 Nano, I/O, USB Hub and 128MB RAM -- if you are using the forthcoming MiSTercade you ONLY need the DE-10 Nano, RAM and MiSTercade) you'll also need a SD card, I use a 200GB SD card which gives me enough room and liberty to throw on large chunks of console sets, arcade cores and related ROMs, alongside a nice chunk of CD games. You can go 128GB and be slightly more selective, or even lower or higher if you want!
1. Grab the latest "Mr. Fusion - Universal MiSTer installation image" from this link: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/mr-fusion
2. Use a tool like Etcher (Mac or PC) to write the image to your SD card, don't worry that it creates a small image, because the MiSTer will resize it to utilise all the space of your SD card
3. Put the SD card into your MiSTer, power it on and it will automatically resize the SD card, it shouldn't take long, a minute or more
4. Plug a keyboard into a USB slot and plug an ethernet cable in to get a network connection. Press F12 on your keyboard, go to scripts, find and hit enter on the "update" script. This script will download all the latest "official" MiSTer data and cores
5. Switch off the unit, eject the SD card
6. Download the latest "Update All" script from this link: https://github.com/theypsilon/Update_All_MiSTer and put it into the scripts folder on the SD card
7. Plug the SD card back into your MiSTer, power it on, and run this new update_all script as you did the previous script. This will download all the arcade/console/computer cores, rom files, bios files, etc.
8. Plug in the controller you wish to use, Press F12 and select "Define Joystick Buttons" and map the face buttons, shoulder buttons, start, select and a OSD button. You can press "space" on your keyboard to skip items you don't want to map. Press enter once you are done (once you've selected the OSD/menu button basically).
With regards to SD card structure, it's relatively simple. There's a "games" folder where you put your ROM files under the individual core directory (eg. NES, or SNES). ROMs for arcade cores are in the "MAME" directoy (but the update_all script generally grabs all that, alongside the BIOS files for you).
From there, you're pretty much basically setup. When you load an arcade or console core. Bring up the OSD Menu button you mapped on your controller (or press F12) and go through and map the individual inputs for each game. Depending on the core, there's a lot of other settings in the menus (hit left and right to scroll through sub menus). Console cores will give you an option to load a ROM or BIN/CUE, etc. Arcade cores will just load the game. Be aware of the "Core Volume" and "Main Volume" setting as voume varies wildly from core-to-core.
From here on in, it's a fairly simple learning curve, a few hours on the unit and you will kind of become accustomed to how the architecture works. With a bit more time and fiddling around, you'll slowly figure out the rest of the stuff and what the native file formats mean. There's lots of great information out there, but I thought I'd share this quick start guide for those just getting into it.
Aside from the main MiSTer hardware of your choice (I personally recommend: a DE-10 Nano, I/O, USB Hub and 128MB RAM -- if you are using the forthcoming MiSTercade you ONLY need the DE-10 Nano, RAM and MiSTercade) you'll also need a SD card, I use a 200GB SD card which gives me enough room and liberty to throw on large chunks of console sets, arcade cores and related ROMs, alongside a nice chunk of CD games. You can go 128GB and be slightly more selective, or even lower or higher if you want!
1. Grab the latest "Mr. Fusion - Universal MiSTer installation image" from this link: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/mr-fusion
2. Use a tool like Etcher (Mac or PC) to write the image to your SD card, don't worry that it creates a small image, because the MiSTer will resize it to utilise all the space of your SD card
3. Put the SD card into your MiSTer, power it on and it will automatically resize the SD card, it shouldn't take long, a minute or more
4. Plug a keyboard into a USB slot and plug an ethernet cable in to get a network connection. Press F12 on your keyboard, go to scripts, find and hit enter on the "update" script. This script will download all the latest "official" MiSTer data and cores
5. Switch off the unit, eject the SD card
6. Download the latest "Update All" script from this link: https://github.com/theypsilon/Update_All_MiSTer and put it into the scripts folder on the SD card
7. Plug the SD card back into your MiSTer, power it on, and run this new update_all script as you did the previous script. This will download all the arcade/console/computer cores, rom files, bios files, etc.
8. Plug in the controller you wish to use, Press F12 and select "Define Joystick Buttons" and map the face buttons, shoulder buttons, start, select and a OSD button. You can press "space" on your keyboard to skip items you don't want to map. Press enter once you are done (once you've selected the OSD/menu button basically).
With regards to SD card structure, it's relatively simple. There's a "games" folder where you put your ROM files under the individual core directory (eg. NES, or SNES). ROMs for arcade cores are in the "MAME" directoy (but the update_all script generally grabs all that, alongside the BIOS files for you).
From there, you're pretty much basically setup. When you load an arcade or console core. Bring up the OSD Menu button you mapped on your controller (or press F12) and go through and map the individual inputs for each game. Depending on the core, there's a lot of other settings in the menus (hit left and right to scroll through sub menus). Console cores will give you an option to load a ROM or BIN/CUE, etc. Arcade cores will just load the game. Be aware of the "Core Volume" and "Main Volume" setting as voume varies wildly from core-to-core.
From here on in, it's a fairly simple learning curve, a few hours on the unit and you will kind of become accustomed to how the architecture works. With a bit more time and fiddling around, you'll slowly figure out the rest of the stuff and what the native file formats mean. There's lots of great information out there, but I thought I'd share this quick start guide for those just getting into it.
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