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MiSTer 101: Setup Guide / Beginners information

When searching for a SCART cable for my MiSTer, the bulk majority of options were VGA to BNC connectors, which wasn't suitable for me as I use a SCART switch and wated a SCART cable. Both retro access and RetroGamingCables have cable options, but they're frequently out of stock, and shipping for a single cable is quite costly at the moment.

Speaking to @evilsim, he suggested Tim Worthington's VGA2SCART 2.0 device which I've been using for a couple of hours with no issues. Picture and sound quality is fantastic and working fine on my Hydra 16-Port SCART Switch.

Setup was simple, put a jumper shunt on the Analog IO board to allow 5v power to Pin9 on VGA and then make sure "composite_sync" to is set to 0 (off) in mister.ini, as the VGA2SCART converts the H/V sync signals to CSYNC.

Hope this helps someone out, you can buy the adapter direct from @evilsim on eBay or pop him a PM here, I'm pretty sure he'll ship internationally.

misterscart.JPG


More info from Tim Worthingtons site -- https://etim.net.au/shop/shop.php?crn=220&rn=582&action=show_detail:

"Useful for connecting an emulation computer to a television set or monitor. This device makes the VGA signal electrically compatible with SCART. The video timing must already be 15 khz, this adapter does not change the video timing.

Features:
Combines horizontal/vertical sync (of any polarity) with a XOR gate to make composite sync.
Accepts TTL composite sync through the VGA input.
Generates SCART status signals that put the TV into RGB mode when a valid sync signal is detected.
May be powered from via the VGA cable or via a separate DC barrel connector.
Aspect ratio selection (requires soldering a switch in place)
Blocks sync signals that are out of range (useful when connecting old arcade monitors).

Requires VGA and 3.5mm audio cables. If the VGA port supplies power (most do) it will use this, otherwese a 5V DR power source is required. A a USB power cable available to fit the DC barrel connector (O.D. 3.5mm, I.D. 1.3mm). The sync signal range blocker feature can be disabled by closing solder jumper J1."
 
I haven't personally messed with the MiSTer but I've been hearing so much about it lately I might have to pick one up to see what all the hype is about! Would really like to know how well it handles cores like DC/Naomi or if its mainly used for emulating older hardware?
 
war3zlod3r said:
I haven't personally messed with the MiSTer but I've been hearing so much about it lately I might have to pick one up to see what all the hype is about! Would really like to know how well it handles cores like DC/Naomi or if its mainly used for emulating older hardware?
Click to expand...

There isn’t a DC or Naomi core yet and there probably won’t be with the current hardware. PS1 and Saturn cores are works in progress right now and will likely push against the limits of what the hardware can deliver.

Definitely consider it for 80s and 90s console, home computer and arcade games though.
 
Damn I hate to hear that, I have mainly used Pi's in the past for that kind of emulation, is there a reason why the MiSTer is more desirable than the Pi for that?
 
Can you add roms to the MiSter one by one? I have been using the MiSter and noticed it only auto updates the USA version of super turbo, and it does not have the 2X Japan Version of Super Turbo. Can I just drag and drop that rom into the folder (From Mame?), or would that not work?
 
Anselmo said:
Can you add roms to the MiSter one by one? I have been using the MiSter and noticed it only auto updates the USA version of super turbo, and it does not have the 2X Japan Version of Super Turbo. Can I just drag and drop that rom into the folder (From Mame?), or would that not work?
Click to expand...
There should be an Alternates folder with all of the MRA's in there for each version. The games in the main selection list are kinda whack IMO. They're mostly Europe regions, and some USA.
You could just swap around the MRA's from the Alternates folder into the main, or just launch the regions you want from the Alt folder.
 
Don’t forget to enable the Arcade Organizer in the update_all script either. The new update makes finding things much easier.
 
I have been searching a lot about just connecting the Mister to a regular arcade monitor, but must be blind or cant seem to find the info I am looking for?
The I/O board 6.1 has a "VGA" output connector, but what kind of cable and internal mister config do I need to simply connect it to and arcade monitors RGBHV connector?
(yeah I know that we have the amazing mistercade, but I dont have that one, nor any other, only the usbhub, and analog I/O board :)
The info I have found is only how to connect it to a consumer TV via scart (15kHz) or 31kHz monitor.. but not just straight to an arcade chassi.

Could anyone please shed some light on this, or point me in the right direction? I have checked the mister wiki and all the places I could find regarding this but I must be blind (or to thick in the head).

Thanks for your time!
 
bytestorm said:
I have been searching a lot about just connecting the Mister to a regular arcade monitor, but must be blind or cant seem to find the info I am looking for?
The I/O board 6.1 has a "VGA" output connector, but what kind of cable and internal mister config do I need to simply connect it to and arcade monitors RGBHV connector?
(yeah I know that we have the amazing mistercade, but I dont have that one, nor any other, only the usbhub, and analog I/O board :)
The info I have found is only how to connect it to a consumer TV via scart (15kHz) or 31kHz monitor.. but not just straight to an arcade chassi.

Could anyone please shed some light on this, or point me in the right direction? I have checked the mister wiki and all the places I could find regarding this but I must be blind (or to thick in the head).

Thanks for your time!
Click to expand...
I am not that knowledgeable about this, but as far as I know: Either buy a jamma expander or similar, to get it easier. Or antinios jamma interface if you are ok with taking power separately. Other option to my understanding is to buy a scart/vga -> RGBs board like etim has. I don't think it would save you any money though.
 
Dloop said:
I am not that knowledgeable about this, but as far as I know: Either buy a jamma expander or similar, to get it easier. Or antinios jamma interface if you are ok with taking power separately. Other option to my understanding is to buy a scart/vga -> RGBs board like etim has. I don't think it would save you any money though.
Click to expand...
Thanks but I would rather not buy any extra boards n stuff, just want to know if its possible to use the output from the analog I/O board that I already have :) using a proper cable and config..
 
bytestorm said:
Thanks but I would rather not buy any extra boards n stuff, just want to know if its possible to use the output from the analog I/O board that I already have :) using a proper cable and config..
Click to expand...
Not as far as I know, as you also need to amplify the signals to TTL levels while regardless of config this will only output consumer level to my understanding.
 
As I understand it, assuming the cabinet display you’re using has a VGA connector and is multisync (like the Blast City or New Net City) then you should be able to connect a standard VGA cable to the VGA port on the MiSTer IO board and it’ll work with the default mister.ini file. The displays in those cabs are designed to work with the same VGA voltages that PCs use.

If your cabinet display is 31 kHz only then you’ll need to enable the line-doubler setting in the mister.ini file.

If the cabinet display you're using doesn't have the VGA port then it's missing the circuitry to operate with the 0.7V levels that both Direct IO and Direct Video use. You'll want to replace the Direct IO board with either the @invzim or @misteraddons solution that incorporates a video amplifier to raise the 0.7V that MiSter outputs to the 5.0V levels that non-VGA arcade displays expect.
 
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This thread might be a good place to document some of my own findings after buying a mister. Maybe someone have suggestions on how to fix the problems I've encountered.

A few weeks ago I bought the "Ultimate MiSTer PRO" from ultimatemister.com. Main reason for buying it was to play arcade cores like Armed Police Batrider and a few Cave games such as Dangun Feveron and Guwange, mostly because I don't have the PCBs. I haven't really been following Mister development but I'm familiar with FPGAs and understand the concept.

After some initial problems I finally have it up and running (the mister arrived pre-installed with everything enabled, which was a bit overwhelming, so the first thing I did was to reinstall from scratch using Mr. Fusion) and connected to my trusty old Ikegami TM20-30R 20" monitor and a VGA-BNC cable. I mainly use this monitor with a HAS supergun, so it should be a good combo for this as well.

First I tried both the TurboGrafx and Neo Geo cores and everything seemed to work really well. Even played Rondo of Blood for an hour. :D

Next up - some Cave games. But this is where my problems start. Tried Guwange first but I get some kind of sync(?) problem. Same thing with Dangun Feveron. In fact, all Cave games behave the same way. I captured the problem here:
View: https://youtu.be/JUbO2BbRNLw

Can't find much info about this problem, except for a few people experiencing the same thing. Development on the Cave cores seems to have stopped(?) as well.

Over to APB, but unfortunately I got a different problem here. On boot I get 68K ROM0 BAD 68K ROM2 BAD and an endless reboot. Same thing with Garegga, Sorcer Striker and Kingdom Grandprix. Bakraid works however, which at least gives me some hope. Deleted the APB core/files and ran update_all again, but no change in behaviour. Also copied the files directly from MAME (and compared checksums to make sure that the files aren't corrupt) but same thing again. Google gave me a few vague results pointing at incompatible RAM in my Mister. Is that a thing with mister hardware?

So that's pretty much where I'm at right now. Would love to hear about more things to try to get these cores going.
 
The Cave cores default to 57 hz refresh which matches the original arcade boards but some displays don’t like it. If you go into the Video settings in the core and change it to 60 hz refresh then that should fix the rolling picture.

21DB7EAD-E8F9-4EB0-AF2E-A9A903D184E1.jpeg

FYI: you’ll likely run into similar rolling picture issues with other arcade cores that use non-60hz refresh rates, such as the Irem M72 and Irem M92 cores.

As for the Raizing games and the startup errors, I’m not sure what the culprit is there. Could be corrupted ROMs or some kind of strange timing incompatibility with your SRAM module. Hit up the author @pr4m0d on Twitter and see what he says about it.
 
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Thanks! I was a bit curious, so I tried a couple of M72 cores (Image Fight and Air Duel) but they play just fine. Also tried M92 In The Hunt and it also plays fine. No rolling picture.

Maybe I'm comparing apples and oranges, but my monitor displays other Cave games just fine when using a real PCB - for example DonPachi, DoDonPachi and ESP Ra.De. I'm using a HAS supergun with the monitor, but as I said, I don't know if that is a good comparison.

Anyway, I set the refresh rate to 60hz in the Dangun Feveron core, but it didn't fix the problem. Still a rolling picture. Actually it made it somewhat worse - the picture seems to be rolling a lot faster now.
 
Another data point - I tried 60hz in a few other Cave cores as well, but no improvement.

I've been going through and testing lots of arcade cores tonight, and the Cave games are the only ones with this issue that I've found so far.
 
IPD said:
Another data point - I tried 60hz in a few other Cave cores as well, but no improvement.

I've been going through and testing lots of arcade cores tonight, and the Cave games are the only ones with this issue that I've found so far.
Click to expand...

Interesting - if the 60hz setting didn't fix it then something else must be going on.

There's already a bug report for the issue in the GitHub bug tracker for the Cave core - I suggest you add your information to this bug report as well so it raises it to the top of the list. I believe nullobject is still working on the core - his GitHub shows lots of activity - he just hasn't released an update in a while.

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Arcade-Cave_MiSTer/issues/117

In the meantime, you may be able to play the Cave games by reverting to the last core released before he tweaked the sync signals.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kXEqASDgeb032ZEoim8Kqc7qN3NtCvhy/view?usp=sharing
 
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