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MiSTer FPGA

djsheep said:
I like my MiSTer, play it once a month or two, but it’s nowhere near accurate enough for me to replace any of my PCBs. I do however use it for anything not in my collection, so it does serve a purpose. Not like I’m going to sell my Raizing and Cave PCBs for a AIO solution. But like I said, get in where you fit in.

As it stands it’s a still a nice piece of kit with an active community developing for it.

The price and falling exchange rate makes it super expensive… if I didn’t buy my kit back when I did, I don’t honestly think I’d spend the money now.

The only game I really play on it is Tapper funnily enough.
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This isn't a criticism of what you're trying to say, because in essence I agree. Original hardware over everything else.

But, it's easy to say when you have the equivalent of a sizable down payment for a house worth of arcade equipment in your signature. Most people who are looking at the Mister just want a step up from PC emulation, at least on this forum, for original hardware they don't have, which I would say the Mister achieves. Prices aren't what they used to be and neither is availability so, at least to someone like me, the Mister is well worth the cost; most cores I would say it's at least 98 percent comprable to original hardware. I'd even say most people here doing a double blind test wouldn't be able to differentiate original hardware from the Mister -- for most games.

My two cents, Mister is well worth the money, upgrade to real hardware when it's available/affordable to you.
 
What are people using to set up their mistercades and irken lab jamma expanders inside cabs? I haven't seen any cases or anything for mounting inside so curious what people are doing. I'm nervous abou5 having them short out.
 
Kidkaos said:
What are people using to set up their mistercades and irken lab jamma expanders inside cabs? I haven't seen any cases or anything for mounting inside so curious what people are doing. I'm nervous abou5 having them short out.
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They're as likely to short out as any other PCB you put in there. It's not any different at all. Arcade PCBs aren't encased for the most part, no need to encase these either. Use the PCB feet, bam, done.
 
Kidkaos said:
What are people using to set up their mistercades and irken lab jamma expanders inside cabs? I haven't seen any cases or anything for mounting inside so curious what people are doing. I'm nervous abou5 having them short out.
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I created a 3D printed case for the JAMMA Expander and put the STL on Thingiverse nearly a year ago.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4974677
 
djsheep said:
I remember reading something somewhere about someone working on this… but with MiSTer the core is only as good as the person working on it.

Somewhat relevant, but Mazinger Z is on Cave 1st gen hardware which nullobject is chipping away at.

There’s been some sub-par shite coming out, but the hardcore MiSTer fan boys get too excited at anything free in a new update to care about quality.

Lastly while I’m here, I have done side by side plays with real PCBs and MiSTer on a few things. The cores never feel 100% to me. I’d spoken to @rtw about this in the past and he feels the same. Can’t really pinpoint it outside of the fact real hardware feels better for the most part. I will say the colour output for a lot of things is horrible.

Anyone else done similar tests?
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I haven't done any super in depth tests, but I do agree that Mister doesn't feel quite right compared to real hardware. From my anecdotal experience (again, no rigorous testing done): For some reason I get input drops for CPS2, particularly for motions that hit/cross diagonals. On the same cab, I'll drop stuff on CPS2 Street Fighter games when using Mister that I don't typically drop on real hardware. This would happen to several people in my small group of arcade gaming buddies, not just me. There's other more obvious stuff like how Neo Geo had a very obvious sound speed issue for a pretty long time before that was fixed.

Edit: Also just remembered. Neo Geo may also have some issues with either input drops or input lag. While I don't play Neo Geo fighting games, besides dabbling in some Breakers Revenge, several of my friends play KoF98 and MotW, and they have complained about the Mister not feeling right. I recall hearing some rumors that the stock PSU is underpowered and may cause some problems. I did upgrade to a beefier Meanwell unit, but haven't really played seriously on the Mister since. I mostly treat it as a quick backup portable gaming setup that I toss in my backpack with an LCD when I go to a friend's place. That way people have something to do when they wait for more serious matches on real PCBs/supergun.
 
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hidaniel said:
most cores I would say it's at least 98 percent comprable to original hardware. I'd even say most people here doing a double blind test wouldn't be able to differentiate original hardware from the Mister -- for most games.
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Not trying to light a fire, and please don’t take this personally (do not want to turn this thread into another dumpster fire), but where does this “98% accurate” figure come from if you, and others, haven’t done actual comparisons. Sure thing I hear these numbers 100%, 99%, 95% accurate but where is the basis if it’s not actually compared against OG hardware by end users?

It’s nowhere near 98% accurate. In my post above I asked if anyone here’s done actual extensive side-by-side “play” testing with original hardware. Lots of crickets so far, however one other report from @Zepherino stating he too noticed some anomalies.

Agreed that if you don’t have original hardware, nor can afford the stupid prices a lot of stuff sells for these days that MiSTer is a bargain… but let’s not discount it (or even hypothetically compare it) against real hardware without proper genuine non-bias testing. Which is what I was promoting or asking about really with my initial post.

I’m seeing controller drop outs, audio issues, colour anomalies and speed differences in a lot of cores when going back to back with original boards. Hard to pinpoint or give solid steps to reproduce but the issues are 100% (not 98%) there.

You’re right that MiSTer is a excellent stepping stone between emulation/simulation and real hardware but not a replacement when we’re talking accuracy or perfect output.

Open for this to be an intelligent discussion, but please don’t be harsh or nasty to one another.
 
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I find that the controller and how it plugs into MiSTer really affects the feel of it for me. CPS1 seems pretty accurate so far as does CPS2. I can't say on the CAVE stuff yet.

Some of the older arcade games vary from waaaaaay off to close enough that I can't tell or I don't have the real PCB to compare to.

End of the day, it's bad, OK, good, and great, but each use case is different. Where it shines is if you don't own that PCB though, then it's great!
 
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rewrite said:
They're as likely to short out as any other PCB you put in there. It's not any different at all. Arcade PCBs aren't encased for the most part, no need to encase these either. Use the PCB feet, bam, done.
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What feet are you guys using?
 
djsheep said:
Not trying to light a fire, and please don’t take this personally (do not want to turn this thread into another dumpster fire), but where does this “98% accurate” figure come from if you, and others, haven’t done actual comparisons. Sure thing I hear these numbers 100%, 99%, 95% accurate but where is the basis if it’s not actually compared against OG hardware by end users?

It’s nowhere near 98% accurate. In my post above I asked if anyone here’s done actual extensive side-by-side “play” testing with original hardware. Lots of crickets so far, however one other report from @Zepherino stating he too noticed some anomalies.

Agreed that if you don’t have original hardware, nor can afford the stupid prices a lot of stuff sells for these days that MiSTer is a bargain… but let’s not discount it (or even hypothetically compare it) against real hardware without proper genuine non-bias testing. Which is what I was promoting or asking about really with my initial post.

I’m seeing controller drop outs, audio issues, colour anomalies and speed differences in a lot of cores when going back to back with original boards. Hard to pinpoint or give solid steps to reproduce but the issues are 100% (not 98%) there.

You’re right that MiSTer is a excellent stepping stone between emulation/simulation and real hardware but not a replacement when we’re talking accuracy or perfect output.

Open for this to be an intelligent discussion, but please don’t be harsh or nasty to one another.
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Nothing but respect to you my man. This is going to be my last reply as I have no interest in this becoming a debate, all of this is just our opinions, if you lived closer I'd buy you a beer just to hear yours. All I was trying to present was an alternate opinion to whether someone should pick up a Mister or not.

Having tried emulators on consoles and on PC I wasn't at all convinced that Mister would be something I was going to be happy with either. What changed my mind was the videos @chicagogamecollector (Thanks CGC!) was posting with the brief comparisons of original hardware v. Mister. I know they're not exhaustive but to me they were quite informative. After trying it out for myself the Mister represents a 'good enough' state, and it's not like I'm not being picky, but I genuinely believe most people would agree. And I completely respect that it isn't good enough for you, but I think you'd probably agree you're a fringe case of a hardcore arcade collector.

Is Mister perfect? No, but it does fill a gaming gap and it does it pretty darn well, at least better than any alternative out there short of original hardware. Most people, myself included, don't have the luxury of pulling out multiple Cave boards to compare the results versus the output from Mister, but then I'm just some shmuck who loves playing games. I think it's one of those things that people have to try for themselves and figure out whether it works for them or not. For the vast majority of people it will work terrifically. Worst case, if someone decides it isn't for them, they can easily pass it along for most of what they paid for it.

The 98% is completely subjective, but I feel like once you reach the stage where people are struggling to pinpoint what it is that's different then you've reached somewhere in the ballpark of that figure. Maybe I'm just old and my hearing and eyesight aren't what they used to be, or I'm not judging things less harshly. But, 2% is still a lot and I think if nothing else we've reaching a point of diminishing returns on the effort of achieving 100% accuracy. I think your criticism of the Mister is fair (how could it not be if you're experiencing issues?) but short of recreating the hardware completely, part by part, trace by trace, I don't think it's possible to recreate things 100%, FPGA or not. Maybe I'm wrong but it sounds like you'd be happy with nothing less since you do have access to so much original hardware.
 
Thanks for the respectful reply. Agreed with your points generally.

I think the dissatisfaction somewhat comes from the influencer/streamer crowd throwing wild “100% accurate” claims out there with no basis.

I own multiple MiSTer units personally and it serves its purpose in my arsenal but at the same token it’s not a replacement when it comes to real hardware but neither was the Raspberry Pi.
 
I feel like a lot of energy might be wasted talking about the inaccuracies or whatever other issues exist with MiSTer cores, rather than reporting those issues to the developers directly. That's the best thing about this whole setup: many (most?) cores are constantly getting updates and fixes.

From my perspective, I'm no longer trying to buy up a ton of expensive and often fragile original arcade (and console) hardware. I have what I already have, which is plenty. For way too many of these games, it's very much cost prohibitive to buy them in the first place, if you can even find them for sale at all anymore. And for the folks who do own the original hardware, you're gonna be the ones us other MiSTer users need to rely on to identify and report the issues because most of us don't own those games and we wouldn't know first hand. Be part of the solution.
 
XtraSmiley said:
End of the day, it's bad, OK, good, and great, but each use case is different. Where it shines is if you don't own that PCB though, then it's great!
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I agree with this. It makes sense to me that different people will have different experiences and come to different viewpoints.

The Mister experience is going to vary depending on the maturity and accuracy of the core, as well as the individual's experience with the original hardware. It's hard to boil it down and talk about it as a device, when it's really like... hundreds of devices at varying states. But just think about just how quickly it's been developed so far. IMO FPGA development still in its infancy and will only get better with time, similarly to emulation (that's evolved for almost 30 years now?). Totally fine to ignore the scene though if it's not good enough as a replacement for preservation yet - maybe it will someday though.
 
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Kidkaos said:
What are people using to set up their mistercades and irken lab jamma expanders inside cabs? I haven't seen any cases or anything for mounting inside so curious what people are doing. I'm nervous abou5 having them short out.
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@misteraddons sells top and bottom plates for Mistercade. Bottom plate can be mounted with standard PCB feet if you want. Top plate is necessary for the Mistercade remote board accessory, which is especially useful and handy: easy access outside of the cabinet to SNAC port, menu and coin buttons, headphone jack, volume dial

For Jamma expander, I think someone else linked a 3D print file for the case to that device.
 
opt2not said:
Or... in the case of the PSX , the MiSTer core is superior to the original!

Here you have a core that has been fully fleshed out, runs 1:1 to the original (
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJdfZVvCD8U
), but also includes a bunch of enhancements like image filters and widescreen support!
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This is definitive proof that's mind boggling to me. PlayStation emulation took what? Like 15 years to get decent (remember Bleem! lol) and even then - epsxe was a mess of plugins and compatibility garbage until recently (protip don't bother and use Duckstation). Now... 1 dude, with some help made the PSX core on Mister in what, under a year? That's absolutely insane. I'm super curious how far FPGA can go as an approach as it tackles more and more complex hardware.

I've come to believe that Mister is a critical project for hardware preservation. While emulation will blaze an early trail in mapping out an understanding, FPGA development for hardware has the opportunity to make it basically perfect and immortal.
 
I've 1cc'd Esprade on mister and arcade PCB back to back. Also 1cc'd Armed Police Batrider advanced course on mister and PCB back to back. I'm impressed with the mister. If you have original PCBs you can notice a few things that are not 100%, but these cores are not fully mature and the experience is really head and shoulders above any emulation setup that I've ever experienced. In the case of Batrider, the mister feels like it has less input lag than the PCB, but more slowdown. I haven't noticed any dropped inputs playing on mistercade/cab. The slowdown and responsiveness of Esprade feels very similar, but the sprite limitations (disappearing HUD) are a noticeable giveaway.

One of the things I'd like to do is record gameplay footage and run them side-by-side. I think the community could really benefit from more in-depth testing. Especially the arcade cores, they are very immature. It's the potential of mister that is exciting to me. It's not quite there, but I see it as a great option if people keep improving the cores. It blew me away when Jotego added the lightning flashes to the Ghosts'n Goblins core. That is another one that I plan on recording side-by-side footage with the PCB when I get some free time.
 
awbacon1 said:
View: https://youtu.be/rDp7p9d6BFI


one FPGA chip vs a duck
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Modern HD Displays/Candies - Duckstation all the way
CRT Displays/Candies - Mister all the way

I grew up with PS and there's nothing nostalgic about the poor quality rendering to me. If anything the PS1 looked like wobbly muddy shit, even compared to the N64 at the time. IMO, scanlines are a necessity unless you're upscaling and fixing the janky image.
 
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