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MiSTer 101: Setup Guide / Beginners information

djsheep

djsheep

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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.
 
Last edited:
Reserved post for further info if needed.
 
djsheep said:
@Ziggy Cheetos Dust not too bad. At the most like 30 minutes or so?
Click to expand...
I will have to give this a go. Just need to source the bits and be satisfied I’m not getting done. I’ve only recently tinkered with console and mame emulation on an RGH 360 and it’s been a bit hit and miss. I’m guessing Bec cause that mame version .78 is so old.
 
I got my MiSTer a few days before you did write-up - Thanks for this one!

One thing you could perhaps add is how to add the samba support, so that I can simply shove the roms over my LAN - i've got absolutely no clue when it comes to linux and ssh, so i'm lost here.


Apart from that, setting up the mister with mr. fusion and the update_all script is amazingly easy -i found getting a retropie installation properly much harder.

And alone the arcade cores are easily worth the price of admission...
 
For samba support, I did the following to get it loading games off my Synology NAS on my network.

Create "cifs_mount.ini" in /media/fat/Scripts with the following:

Code: 
SERVER="SYNOLOGYNAS"
SHARE="mister"
USERNAME="mister"
PASSWORD="qwerty"
LOCAL_DIR="*"
WAIT_FOR_SERVER="true"
MOUNT_AT_BOOT="true"
ADDITIONAL_MOUNT_OPTIONS="vers=2.0"

Of course, change the SERVER, SHARE, USERNAME and PASSWORD values to your own.

So in Windows, the path looks like this:
\\SYNOLOGYNAS\mister

Inside that folder is a single folder called "games", and in there a folder for each core's game files (ROMs, VHD, etc.)
\\SYNOLOGYNAS\mister\games\ao486
\\SYNOLOGYNAS\mister\games\MegaCD
etc.

afterward, run /media/fat/Scripts/cifs_mount.sh

The share should then automount on each boot after. Only time it didn't was after a linux update. Re-running the cifs_mount.sh again fixed the issue.
 
Question.. that upload script all, does it download all the roms for all the cores example nes, pc en, snes, arcade etc?
 
There's more or less my problem in your post, @Stupid Dufus . You wrote what you did, but nothow you did it.
I tried the Article in the MiSTer Bible Wiki about samba shares, and couldn't do it for exactly the same reason:

Notes:​


  • By default Samba service is not active. You need to rename /media/fat/linux/_samba.sh to linux/samba.sh, then edit this file if you need specific user name and password (default is user root with pass 1) and then reboot the MiSTer.
Click to expand...
How? That's not on the partition I'm able to see when I put the sd card in my windows PC. Isuppose i need ssh and the need to do this stuff with linux command line, and that's exactly the stuff everbody expects me to know (and that's exactly the reason i hate Linux.

I used to be a DOS kid, and even that's so long ago that i've forgotten most of the stuff, as i said i'm totally lost with linux, i really need a total dummies guide ;(
 
SNK-NEO-GEO said:
Question.. that upload script all, does it download all the roms for all the cores example nes, pc en, snes, arcade etc?
Click to expand...
the update_all script downloads the roms for the Arcade cores, and bios files for the rest. Console roms (including Neogeo) you need to source and upload yourself - and i think i had tu add the cdrom bios for PC-Engine myself. but so far I only tested pce/cd, some arcade cores, and the Gameboy core myself
 
ok, i'm dumb - on Windows /media/fat is the root folder of the sd card... Now i'm back in business.
X/
 
MoppelTheWhale said:
There's more or less my problem in your post, @Stupid Dufus . You wrote what you did, but nothow you did it.
I tried the Article in the MiSTer Bible Wiki about samba shares, and couldn't do it for exactly the same reason:


How? That's not on the partition I'm able to see when I put the sd card in my windows PC. Isuppose i need ssh and the need to do this stuff with linux command line, and that's exactly the stuff everbody expects me to know (and that's exactly the reason i hate Linux.

I used to be a DOS kid, and even that's so long ago that i've forgotten most of the stuff, as i said i'm totally lost with linux, i really need a total dummies guide ;(
Click to expand...

Sorry, I should've mentioned how it shows up on Windows. Also, I'm pretty sure I've never had to touch anything in that /media/fat/linux folder or rename files there, but I got mine about 8 months ago, so maybe I forgot I did?

MoppelTheWhale said:
ok, i'm dumb - on Windows /media/fat is the root folder of the sd card... Now i'm back in business.
X/
Click to expand...

Does that mean you were able to get it working?
 
yes :whistling: - as is said - i thought i need do it through ssh/linux, after this revelation it was a piece of cake.

I haven't tried your method yet with loading roms completely from the NAS yet, because that would limit the points where i could use it, but once i get arount to the 486 core i'll definately try it.
 
I found a very easy way to update your mister FPGA by use a soft named updater-pc,you can download this from the wiki home mister fpga page ,when you downloaded it ,and
then you extract the folde "updater-pc"to you TF card's root ,and then you run the update-win.bat , and wait for update finish. It was really easy .and downloaded the cheats also . It's
easy for useing cheat now
 
MiSter question,,,Is there a way to flip the screen on the arcade game Arkanoid and the like where the picture is tate but upside down? thanks
 
SNK-NEO-GEO said:
MiSter question,,,Is there a way to flip the screen on the arcade game Arkanoid and the like where the picture is tate but upside down? thanks
Click to expand...
Unfortunately not, if there's no DIP switch settings, or if it's not manually programmed into the core, it's not doable. One of the gripes about the older games.

Thankfully, the more talented ambitious programmers add this option in their cores (Cave, etc.)
 
are there any alternative game selection menus? Is there any way to lock out any modifications via the menu?

...or even just a way to get to the core selection menu without using a keyboard?

I recently setup a mister for an arcade cab that I want to put in a lounge of an office and it'd be great if I could leave it there without worrying about some mucking up the settings or bricking the thing.
 
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