MiSTER Pi - first impressions

[eric]

MiSTER Pi

We create gaming consoles, handhelds, and DIY solutions for gaming devices.

retroremake.co

I've been eyeing the MiSTER platform since it came out - interesting concept of simulating real hardware on a FPGA vs emulating hardware in software.

I'd been turned off a bit by 1) the price and 2) the time investment of understanding the ecosystem. But years have passed, software's gotten easier to use and with the MiSTER Pi (bad name, has nothing to do with Pi foundation!) I figured it was time to dive in (also have an arcade cabinet project I'll be starting next year, which this will power).

the MiSTER Pi doesnt use the DE10 dev board directly like others do - but they've built their own board with the FPGA on it and made some improvements - such as having direct connections to other boards instead of using external adapters.

I got in on the latest batch from retroremake (currently sold out) - and accidentally clicked 4x shipping - but luckily it wasnt the slowest boat and after a few weeks it arrived. Packaging is quite nice and wasn't expecting anything fancy.

It came pre-assembled (I have enough projects around my office!) - with 128mb SRAM and analogue board. A SNES S.N.A.C. adapter (more on that in a bit) was included as well.

The SD card was pre-flashed with the MiSTER software - no roms or bios's of course. Thats where update_all comes in - drop it in your scripts folder of the SD card, and update - thats it! https://github.com/theypsilon/Update_All_MiSTer?tab=readme-ov-file

I hooked it up to my VGA monitor but it didn't support the mode - luckily it was just editing an ini file to enable the built in scaler over the VGA port.

I used my xbox controller over USB - worked right away with no mappings - fired up Mario Bros and played a few levels, off to a great start! I'll be loading up the cores and ROMs here and curating some favorites as just the GoodNES collection is 6k files(!).

Back to the S.N.A.C. This is a very odd decision to me in the MiSTER echosystem - it allows for 0 input lag with original controllers - hooking up directly to the gpio pins - stands for "Serial Native Accessory Converter" - also allows the use of light guns.

That's all great - but the connector they used is USB - but it's not USB! It also requires a level shifter if your controller is 5v. I don't know about you but the general public seeing a USB connector or a USB port is going to plug USB things into it. It seems bad to send a random 5v over USB to some pin on your controller. To make matters even more strange some SNAC adapters use HDMI connectors(!?@). I get that those connectors are likely cheap and plentiful - but from a useability and user error perpective it seems like the wrong choice.

Well that's my first impressions so far - easy to get going, ecosystem still a bit confusing - but lots of options to poke around at. My goal is to do less poking and more playing though!

 

[eric]

Well unfortunately the SNAC adapter/level shifter people got in the batch2 does not seem to work - https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?p=92918

 

[akator]

I've had a MiSTer (original) for a few years. Once you get it setup the way you want, it's a lot of fun.

Some people greatly prefer it to software emulation but I see it as a good supplement. These days latency mitigation in software emulation is pretty good, so I no longer notice the latency that was so common in decades past. MiSTer hasn't replaced my original hardware or my use of software emulation as it has with for many others, but I still enjoy it.

I never bothered with SNAC as I have plenty of USB adapters to use original controllers.

 

[Patrick]

I picked up the one that uses a DE-10 and it took over a year to get it because of the pandemic. I set it up for a few 8bit and 16 bit consoles. (NES / sega) and havn't used it much after that.

Have you tried it with the Mac PLUS core yet?

 

[akator]

Have you tried it with the Mac PLUS core yet?

I have on my DE-10 Nano MiSTer. It's nice but I found it to be buggier than real hardware and Mini vMac. The Mac Plus core audio issues were fixed earlier this year so that's a welcome improvement. I'm hoping that we one day get a color Mac core. It's possible to run an emulated color Mac using the Amiga (MiniMig) core on MiSTer, and that works surprisingly well, but when using a Mac I would prefer not to use an Amiga to get there.

 

[eric]

Diagnosed a bad mosfet on the SNAC level shifter - they sent a new one and it worked right away.

Got a NFC card reader and Zaparoo - this is a must have in my opinion. Write to an NFC card, insert it, game starts up. Made some shinny labels and it works great. My 6 year old son can even just walk downstairs, turn it on and pop in his favorite game without any help. I have it setup so when the NFC card is removed it goes back to the main menu - so "feels" like inserting a game cart.

Though new issue popped up - the fan has a loud ticking sound.

 

[fxgogo]

I just received a MisterPi turbo pack tonight. Bought it second hand as the original purchaser recognised they wou not have time to use it. Very excited to give it a go. Want to compared it to raspberry pi emulation and even emulators on my PC workstation.

 

[akator]

I'm curious how you like it.

 

[fxgogo]

Well got it setup with the basics and so far, I am enjoying it. Mostly played the arcade cores.
Like the quick way I can jump between games.
Seems the supported games are quite a bit smaller than say Mame, but I guess that is to be expected.
Some of the arcade games seem to be not fully running. Outrun for example, does not have the music at the beginning.

Gonna look at the console and computer cores tomorrow.

 

[akator]

The Cyclone FPGA used by MiSTer only has 110K logic elements to reproduce hardware including processors, ROMs, and discrete logic. MAME does not have that limitation, the ROMs and emulation can be whatever memory the host system has.

Because of this limitation, for more complex systems and arcade titles there are workarounds to squeeze more complex systems into the 110K LE. Obviously, this solution still has limitations. Some systems and arcade titles will never be possible on the existing MiSTer hardware.

That said, there have been amazing developments in recent years. It was believed that PS1, N64, Saturn, and Jaguar would never be possible because the original hardware complexity could never fit into the 110K LE. Those cores are not exact reproductions of the original hardware in FPGA but enough to get many / most games running. There are also more bugs.

There has been talk of a MiSTer successor for years but the current issue is the higher price of newer and larger FPGAs.