MiSTer: FPGA Arcade And Console Emulation

[gamepimp]

I haven’t seen anything about this on BYOAC yet and I wasn’t sure if it was because no one really knew about it or because there wasn’t much interest. Hopefully it’s the former and not the latter because I know I’m pretty jazzed up about it. Basically the MiSTer project is open source hardware emulation of arcade PCBs, consoles, and computers running on a DE-10 Nano FPGA. The difference between this hardware emulation and the usual software emulation is that MiSTer essentially makes the DE-10 run like original hardware. If coded properly, games will run exactly as they do on consoles or in an original arcade machine. This can dramatically cut down on latency and inaccuracies imposed by software emulation. Not to mention that a device that is around $130 is pretty accurately emulating quite a few different consoles (NES, SNES, Master System, Genesis/MD, PCE/TG16/SuperGrafx, Coleco, Atari, etc.), computers (MSX, Amiga, C64, etc.), and arcade games. Pretty exciting stuff IMO. I put a link for the Wiki down below for anyone who is interested.

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki

[negative1]

saw that.

mame is good enough for 99% of the people.

later
-1

[whammoed]

Neat.  Hope it takes off and gains popularity.  For me would need to do what Advmame/Advmenu does.  Needs game menu for selecting game and a way to adjust the screen height/width/position per game if needed for the different resolutions used.

[gamepimp]

Neat.  Hope it takes off and gains popularity.  For me would need to do what Advmame/Advmenu does.  Needs game menu for selecting game and a way to adjust the screen height/width/position per game if needed for the different resolutions used.

There is a GUI menu to select games and all other settings. They also recently added the ability to adjust the screen size per core. Each arcade game has its own core, so you should be able to resize each one individually. There are almost daily updates to this project adding new functionality. Like for instance they just added the ability to use zipped roms to save space on the SD card. While most people are probably fine with software emulation, this is a great option for those of us who want the most accurate emulation possible with the lowest amount of lag. Plus the more options we have out there to play retro games the better IMO. 

[Howard_Casto]

I don't get this recent trend towards fpgas.  The only thing it has going for it is more accurate timing.  You still have to "build" the system via software programming, so it can still be just as inaccurate as software emulation, despite what anyone might tell you. 

Now if these fpgas were powerful enough to run more powerful systems then it might be useful as the hardware wouldn't suffer from slow-downs as more demanding systems do via software emulation.  Unless I haven't been keeping up I don't think we are there yet. 

[Grasshopper]

I don't get this recent trend towards fpgas.  The only thing it has going for it is more accurate timing.

Well yes, but that's the single biggest issue that separates good emulation from bad emulation.

Personally, I'm pretty excited by the technology. These boards are now approaching the price point where I'm struggling to find a reason not to buy one to play with. The main advantage of FPGA technology is that it gives you genuine parallel processing instead of the crude simulation of parallel processing that software emulation achieves by brute-force alone. It's a much more elegant, and ultimately more effective, way to emulate old hardware.

That being said, I will agree that it's overkill for 99% of people. But many people on this forum are part of the 1%...

For most people, emulation of 8 and 16 bit platforms became more than "good enough" 15 years ago. But there will always be some people who want absolutely the best emulation experience possible. And frankly, if it's a choice between buying a new PC and upgrading to the latest version of MAME, or using an FPGA board, then at this point, I'd choose the latter.

[hurricanefan]

Dumb question, how is this differently than a raspberry pi? The specs might be different but similar concept.

[Howard_Casto]

A pi just uses software emulation.  That being said, like I said, despite what Grasshopper might tell you emulation on these older systems is so good at this point that any differences due to better timing on a fpga are going to go unnoticed by virtually everyone. 

[opt2not]

I’ve been following the MiSTer development for the last little while and it’s looking really promising as the pi killer. I haven’t got one yet, but I’m waiting to see more arcade cores be released before I commit. I’m happy about more accurate timings , but I’m even more excited about less input lag and an easier setup than the pi.

[gamepimp]

One benefit I would like to see from using the DE-10 FPGA is the ability to have cartridge adapters that would let people play their original games or even ROMs on an Everdrive or equivalent backup cart. This is essentially what more expensive devices like the NT Mini, Super NT, Retro AVS, and other clone consoles do.