MiSTer FPGA System

Hero_of_the_Day · Nov 14, 2018

MiSTeR is an open source reproduction/emulation project designed around the FPGA equipped Terasic DE10-nano. It is still early days, but there are already a ton of awesome cores for things like the NES, Genesis, Turbografx16, MSX, and plenty of arcade games.

The main components you will need is the Terasic DE10-Nano and an SDRAM board (links below). There is also an IO board that gives analogue outs, and a USB board that attaches to the bottom of the system. If you don't have the USB board, you'll need a micro USB hub to plug in your keyboard and controllers. The IO boards usually come with a heatsink and fan. If you don't buy one, it is suggested that you have a fan mount 3D printed as you can't attach a fan directly to the main board.

There are also 3D printable cases to be found in the main github. You have a couple of different choices between a really tiny one that requires the vertical RAM:

Or the full sized (still damn small) that can hold the horizontal shaped RAM. Here is mine:

Going to have the top and bottom redone in better quality eventually, but it'll keep it safe for now.

Useful links:

MiSTeR main github/wiki
Where to buy expansion boards (like the needed SDRAM)
Terasic DE10 Nano
SmokeMonster's Twitter (just a good guy to follow for news)

Hero_of_the_Day · Nov 14, 2018

Some clips of MiSTeR in action:

Genesis:

PC Engine/TurboGrafx16

Game Gear:

Super Nintendo:

UltimateTrainer · Nov 14, 2018

I've been intrigued by FPGA since the Digital Foundary videos talked about the Analogue stuff. Seems really difficult to set up but Im watching this thread for sure.

Aeana · Nov 14, 2018

I almost put one of these together about a year-ish ago, but then I started watching videos of some of the cores in action, and many of the ones I cared about didn't seem to be in a state where I could enjoy playing on them. I'm sure things have progressed since then.

TSM · Nov 15, 2018

Unlike Analogue this is a hobbyist project. Do not go in expecting the quality you would receive from a commercial product. Some of the available cores will be more polished than others.

Hero_of_the_Day · Nov 15, 2018

UltimateTrainer said:
I've been intrigued by FPGA since the Digital Foundary videos talked about the Analogue stuff. Seems really difficult to set up but Im watching this thread for sure.

It really isn't difficult. You get the DE10 nano and the ram, slam 'em together, put your sd card into your PC and format it and load it with the firmware and cores and you're good to go.

Aeana said:
I almost put one of these together about a year-ish ago, but then I started watching videos of some of the cores in action, and many of the ones I cared about didn't seem to be in a state where I could enjoy playing on them. I'm sure things have progressed since then.

Things have been progressing like crazy the last month apparently. I'd check back in. They have added color palettes and disk system to the NES, though I don't think it's on the main github yet. Apparently the Genesis has improved a lot as well.

TSM said:
Unlike Analogue this is a hobbyist project. Do not go in expecting the quality you would receive from a commercial product. Some of the available cores will be more polished than others.

It is still early days. There is absolutely no reason this can't surpass Analogues products in the coming months or years. Analogues products aren't perfect, but they are what they are now because they have moved on to future products and it isn't open source so no one else can move in and improve things. Still waiting on those redone scanlines Kevtris promised...

Shit, there are better emulators than the NES and SNES classic out there, and those are fucking Nintendo products. Willing to bet the PS classic will be no different.

Deleted member 11018 · Nov 15, 2018

UltimateTrainer said:
I've been intrigued by FPGA since the Digital Foundary videos talked about the Analogue stuff. Seems really difficult to set up but Im watching this thread for sure.

Nothing difficult about them, it's just to be considered a hobby and a new ground to learn from :)

I love them, my playground has 48cpu xeon2 cores coupled to 48fpga cores, it's the sweetest thing on earth for what it's meant to do. Perhaps i could have better performances out of GPUs, but i just love fpgas.

TSM · Nov 15, 2018

Hero_of_the_Day said:
It is still early days. There is absolutely no reason this can't surpass Analogues products in the coming months or years. Analogues products aren't perfect, but they are what they are now because they have moved on to future products and it isn't open source so no one else can move in and improve things. Still waiting on those redone scanlines Kevtris promised...

Shit, there are better emulators than the NES and SNES classic out there, and those are fucking Nintendo products. Willing to bet the PS classic will be no different.

There's also no reason to believe many of the cores will ever approach the quality of kevtris's work. He dismounts the real chips from the systems and then black box reverse engineers them so that his cores are simultaneously outputting bit for bit the same output as the original chips. That level of accuracy is a very high bar that very few will meet.

Hero_of_the_Day · Nov 15, 2018

TSM said:
There's also no reason to believe many of the cores will ever approach the quality of kevtris's work. He dismounts the real chips from the systems and then black box reverse engineers them so that his cores are simultaneously outputting bit for bit the same output as the original chips. That level of accuracy is a very high bar that very few will meet.

I certainly don't think many of them will. But, the major players that will get the most attention, I believe in. Kevtris is obviously a genius who has done amazing work. There is no reason to believe he is the only one capable of achieving what he has, though. Especially with the speed at which this has all progressed.

And again, for all his meticulous work and Analogues claims of perfection, the Super NT still isn't perfect. And nobody else can come in and try to make it better.

I am literally playing my Super NT right now, with Link to the Past paused as I type this. I love the thing. But, there is absolutely no reason to believe Kevtris is the only person who can achieve this. To go further, there is no reason to believe others can't even do better. It is actually rather hard to imagine that no one will do better in the long term if this is where his work were to end. You are essentially betting on the horse who has quit the race to stay in the lead since it currently seems no Super NT updates are coming.

Inugami · Nov 15, 2018

This could honestly, one day, be a panacea to a lot of preservation issues we have with older hardware. Once serious work gets done in the x86 space and I can run a full ms dos environment on it, I might jump in. I've currently got a 20 year old laptop setup, but it's already pretty plagued with hardware issues that will only get worse.

TSM · Nov 15, 2018

Hero_of_the_Day said:
I certainly don't think many of them will. But, the major players that will get the most attention, I believe in. Kevtris is obviously a genius who has done amazing work. There is no reason to believe he is the only one capable of achieving what he has, though. Especially with the speed at which this has all progressed.

And again, for all his meticulous work and Analogues claims of perfection, the Super NT still isn't perfect. And nobody else can come in and try to make it better.

I am literally playing my Super NT right now, with Link to the Past paused as I type this. I love the thing. But, there is absolutely no reason to believe Kevtris is the only person who can achieve this. To go further, there is no reason to believe others can't even do better. It is actually rather hard to imagine that no one will do better in the long term if this is where his work were to end. You are essentially betting on the horse who has quit the race to stay in the lead since it currently seems no Super NT updates are coming.

Kevtris's big issue is time. He maintains a full time job and still spends nearly every other waking moment on projects for Analogue. The SNT isn't perfect because he was told to move along to the next project. He doesn't forget about old projects. Just the other day he was talking about the Intellivision core being ported to the NT Mini as soon as he gets some free time. He's said he's actually already corrected most if not all of the outstanding SNT issues. We aren't likely to get that firmware update until Analogue releases the DAC though. I'd imagine that whatever scanline and scaling improvements he's made for the Mega SG will also make their way over to the SNT at that time.

As for being open source, kev has solidly ruled that out, but he documents his work and passes on a lot of his research to the community. See the stories around the SNT launch about his collaborations with Byuu.

Drain You · Nov 15, 2018

ETA Prime did a couple different videos on this. Looks pretty good if you ask me.

Seb · Nov 15, 2018

Hero_of_the_Day said:
I certainly don't think many of them will. But, the major players that will get the most attention, I believe in. Kevtris is obviously a genius who has done amazing work. There is no reason to believe he is the only one capable of achieving what he has, though. Especially with the speed at which this has all progressed.

And again, for all his meticulous work and Analogues claims of perfection, the Super NT still isn't perfect. And nobody else can come in and try to make it better.

I am literally playing my Super NT right now, with Link to the Past paused as I type this. I love the thing. But, there is absolutely no reason to believe Kevtris is the only person who can achieve this. To go further, there is no reason to believe others can't even do better. It is actually rather hard to imagine that no one will do better in the long term if this is where his work were to end. You are essentially betting on the horse who has quit the race to stay in the lead since it currently seems no Super NT updates are coming.

I don't know, I woudln't be so sure. I've bought the MiST years ago, contributors come and go but the quality of cores just stagnates. There were improvements sure, but most of them never reached the quality I expected. One of the reason in my opinion is that there are not that many professional VHDL programmers out there. A lot less than software developpers anyway, and the fact is that most of the contributors are beginners that can get 90% of the job done, but lack the knowledge and experience to finish it.

Elfforkusu · Nov 15, 2018

FPGAs will 100% be the solution going forward for emulating (really: reproducing) old hardware architectures. Each one is going to be a pain in the ass to get right, but once they're right...

Seb · Nov 15, 2018

Ahaha, just when I say it won't happen, it happens: http://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&p=358261#p358261
A cycle accurate 68000 core is a major breakthrough! Integration with the genesis core is already under way, and I can't wait to see what happens when that gets integrated into the Atari ST core :)

Hero_of_the_Day · Nov 15, 2018

Yeah, yesterday was a crazy day between the cycle accurate 68000 and SNES appearing.

The SNES core is just crazy because nobody knew it was coming, just a random person/people threw it up on Github. As of last night, nobody had even figured out who it is. Just plopped it out there like it was no big deal. Hopefully it gets ported to the Mister relatively quickly. An all in one NES, SNES, and Genesis is really all I want. Everything else is just a bonus to me.

I think the biggest problem I have right now is that everything seems so scattered. I feel like I essentially have to keep up with SmokeMonster for news. 'Cause like the newest NES core with Firebrand's color pallette and disk system shit isn't in the official github. I literally found it through SM's twitter, and it's just a direct download, so I don't know where else to watch for updates. He has said the person working on it's name (Rysha or something?). But, I don't know who that is and googling it got me nowhere. It is hard to get a sense of who is working on what and when something new releases. Just follow SmokeMonster and keep checking the atari age forum. Which, man, that forum isn't the best. It is always super slow to load for me.

Seb said:
I don't know, I woudln't be so sure. I've bought the MiST years ago, contributors come and go but the quality of cores just stagnates. There were improvements sure, but most of them never reached the quality I expected. One of the reason in my opinion is that there are not that many professional VHDL programmers out there. A lot less than software developpers anyway, and the fact is that most of the contributors are beginners that can get 90% of the job done, but lack the knowledge and experience to finish it.

The exciting thing right now is all the attention this is getting. Crazy that one dude did some videos on it, and suddenly the ram stock people thought would last for months was gone in an instant and no place can keep inventory. It is fair to worry about what will happen in some months when the new-thing heat dissipates. We'll see. I like SmokeMonsters attitude of; this is still super early days, and what is being built here is for the future even beyond the current MiSTer project. It's all interesting to me to watch as an outsider who understands just about nothing about the actual tech and programming shit. That's why I jumped in a couple of weeks ago. I just like playing around with it all and watching things progress.

EDIT: A video of the SNES core just went online showing it running SDD1 chipped games. Man, I hope this comes to MiSTer quick. I will probably unload my super nt and sd2snes when it gets good enough to make me happy.

johnhandy · Nov 21, 2018

Thanks for this thread. Re-reading the wiki page and watching a few videos makes a whole lot more sense now. Sounds like the only extra bits beyond the board is an SDRAM expansion board, and an USB OTG cable+hub or OTG hub.

phanboy4 · Nov 21, 2018

I've been watching Smokemonster's videos on this and have come very close to pulling the trigger.

If you're a bit of a tinkerer, this is a much better option than an RPi or the Analogue consoles.

Hero_of_the_Day · Nov 21, 2018

johnhandy said:
Thanks for this thread. Re-reading the wiki page and watching a few videos makes a whole lot more sense now. Sounds like the only extra bits beyond the board is an SDRAM expansion board, and an USB OTG cable+hub or OTG hub.

I'm gonna redo the OP at some point. Kind of been waiting for some big news to hit, and to come up with a better idea of what I want this thread to actually be, and to simplify my ramblings.

But, yeah, all you absolutely need is the DE-10 Nano, SDRam, and a USB hub (or the USB daughter board). The I/O board is mostly for analogue output. It has some buttons, but I don't really understand their point and haven't found an explanation online of what they actually do (I haven't really looked either). the left one seems to reset it, not sure what the other two buttons do. They do suggest a fan and heatsink, so if you don't have an I/O board, you'll want to track down a fan and have someone 3D print a fan mount.

phanboy4 said:
I've been watching Smokemonster's videos on this and have come very close to pulling the trigger.

If you're a bit of a tinkerer, this is a much better option than an RPi or the Analogue consoles.

I have had a Pi and a retrotink for component out for forever and never really done much with it. This feels so much better already to me. The input lag on the Pi fucking killed it for me.

johnhandy · Nov 21, 2018

Paradise Arcade Shop posted on their FB that they'll have MiSTer SDRAM boards for preorder on Friday.
EDIT
Oh there's Twitter post:
https://twitter.com/arcadeparts/status/1065396020719337472

phanboy4 · Nov 22, 2018

I'm getting more and more tempted to get this.

Question though: My current CRT setup is SCART-based, I see there's a VGA output daughterboard, and a VGA-RGB SCART cable.

Can you control scaling at a per-core level, or is everything on VGA scaled to 640x480, or is scaling a global option you have to keep twiddling with as you switch cores?

johnhandy · Nov 22, 2018

https://paradisearcadeshop.com/en/home/kits/black-friday-sales/2402_extra-slim-sdram-mister

$20+shipping

Hero_of_the_Day · Nov 23, 2018

That shit is surely gonna sell out quick. Crazy nice price.

low-G · Nov 23, 2018

Elfforkusu said:
FPGAs will 100% be the solution going forward for emulating (really: reproducing) old hardware architectures. Each one is going to be a pain in the ass to get right, but once they're right...

Why not 'time warp' setups where they send your inputs back a few states and fast forward? In other words, raw power?

phanboy4 · Nov 23, 2018

low-G said:
Why not 'time warp' setups where they send your inputs back a few states and fast forward? In other words, raw power?

That doesn't fix the issue of software emulation requiring shortcuts to run acceptably, just input lag.

FPGA implementations can be fast and accurate and low-lag. Software emulators usually have to pick 2.

Niosai · Nov 23, 2018

I'm not sure I fully understand, so know that I'm asking this out of legitimate curiosity. What's the benefit of using this over something like Raspberry Pi? Or is this something completely different?

Elfforkusu · Nov 23, 2018

low-G said:
Why not 'time warp' setups where they send your inputs back a few states and fast forward? In other words, raw power?

This is a solution for input lag more than it is for accuracy, AFAIK

If emulators represent the software side of emulation, FPGAs represent the hardware side. You can do super-accurate software emulation, but usually you don't want to -- you need so much more processing more to do it.

There's also an issue with the "raw power" approach once we start talking about newer architectures than just, say, SNES. What raw power? Moore's Law is dead. We have, right now, most of the raw power we'll have in 2040. Software emulation being both perfect and fast for a lot of these things isn't just hard, it's impossible.

MysteryM · Nov 23, 2018

Niosai said:
I'm not sure I fully understand, so know that I'm asking this out of legitimate curiosity. What's the benefit of using this over something like Raspberry Pi? Or is this something completely different?

Raspberry pi uses software to emulate, and thus even though it emulates the console some parts of it won't be cycle (timing) perfect, and these imperfections cause problems with input lag, frame rendering etc so that the emulation is not 100% the same as the original hardware. E.g the zx spectrum computer is software emulated but graphics demos on it which rely heavily on cpu timings don't run perfectly on them and yet the spectrum next (fgpa) mimics the hardware cycles of the original computer perfectly and so the demos run perfectly. It's the same with games, the snes mini may look like it's perfect but it's not and frame rendering and input timings might be slightly out.

Paertan · Nov 23, 2018

I work as an FPGA developer and these things are really cool. And perfect use of the things FPGA:s are great for. It is usually the other way around though. You develop a processor or integrated circuit on an FPGA and then when you are satisfied you turn it into an ASIC for better performance and lower cost.
But for emulating old hardware is is great since they run so low frequencies. They do not work in the same speeds as regular CPU:s but the insane amount of data they can handle is awesome.

low-G · Nov 23, 2018

phanboy4 said:
That doesn't fix the issue of software emulation requiring shortcuts to run acceptably, just input lag.

FPGA implementations can be fast and accurate and low-lag. Software emulators usually have to pick 2.

Elfforkusu said:
This is a solution for input lag more than it is for accuracy, AFAIK

If emulators represent the software side of emulation, FPGAs represent the hardware side. You can do super-accurate software emulation, but usually you don't want to -- you need so much more processing more to do it.

There's also an issue with the "raw power" approach once we start talking about newer architectures than just, say, SNES. What raw power? Moore's Law is dead. We have, right now, most of the raw power we'll have in 2040. Software emulation being both perfect and fast for a lot of these things isn't just hard, it's impossible.

So you're saying when people develop cycle-accurate Saturn or N64 cores or whatever, that'll obviously be better to do in FPGA. Will FPGA scale with complexity & cost to that extent too? I seriously don't know about how the tech is developing.

Elfforkusu · Nov 23, 2018

low-G said:
So you're saying when people develop cycle-accurate Saturn or N64 cores or whatever, that'll obviously be better to do in FPGA. Will FPGA scale with complexity & cost to that extent too? I seriously don't know about how the tech is developing.

IMO, yes -- but it's worth noting that until someone actually does it, it's definitely debatable. :)

FWIW: the FPGA used in the Super Nt is the Altera Cyclone V, which seems to be a 28nm process.

Hero_of_the_Day · Nov 23, 2018

Elfforkusu said:
FWIW: the FPGA used in the Super Nt is the Altera Cyclone V, which seems to be a 28nm process.

I believe the MiSTer is a Cyclone V also, but a more powerful one. I asked SmokeMonster how much more power it was. I was told the Super had 49,000 logic elements vs 110,000 on the MiSTer. I don't know what logic elements are but that number is way bigger.

Hero_of_the_Day · Nov 26, 2018

Got a 3D case made for mine:

Happy with the color scheme, but defintely going to have the top and bottom reprinted with a higher quality material. First time having a 3D print done. Didn't realize PLA would turn out so rough looking.

MysteryM · Nov 26, 2018

Order a mister and some slim sdram and heatsink from the Atari forums. Can't wait for christmas - it's a present to myself.

johnhandy · Nov 26, 2018

I ordered a DE10-Nano over the weekend, too. I probably would've skipped this completely if Paradise Aracde Shop hadn't announced they were making SDRAM boards. I'm hoping they work with the LL Cool Joy board creator to manufacture/distribute that one whenever it's ready. RJ45 using MCC pinout would be amazing.

LL Cool Joy: https://twitter.com/SmokeMonsterTWI/status/1052314800980729856

Hero_of_the_Day · Nov 26, 2018

I didn't realize you can't save on the Genesis core yet. That sucks. It seems to run the majority of things great already, but that is a pretty huge missing feature.

dadjumper · Nov 27, 2018

I really love my SuperNT, but an all-in-one solution like this sounds fantastic.
Honestly, if it could do Neo Geo accurately I might just have to make the jump.

Hero_of_the_Day · Nov 29, 2018

SNES just got its first official release. Looks like it works pretty damn well, but no special chips so far. Apparently the main guy who developed the core doesn't even have a MiSTeR setup yet, and won't for about a month. But, awesome to finally have an official release.

Also, work has begun on PC Engine/TurboGrafx CD support. Which is apparently extra interesting because:

This is important not only for PC Engine CD, but also Sega CD, Jaguar CD, Playstation, and other disc-based systems, because portions of the code to stream CD data will be similar across platforms.

That is the kind of stuff that intrigues me about this whole thing. I still don't understand shit about FPGA, but the way it all works together is interesting.

Supposedly people are working on Atari Jaguar and PlayStation also. But, no links for anything official. I assume something as advanced as PlayStation will still be a long ways away, especially from being great quality.

MysteryM · Nov 29, 2018

MY mister arrived today, so looking forward to using it once the sdram arrives. Still have an io board and USB board to source :(

xxracerxx · Nov 29, 2018

So this is what Jeff Gerstmann was talking about. Looks rad.

Hero_of_the_Day · Nov 29, 2018

Well I went to check out the SNES core, and I can't get the USB hub to work. I have heard the micro USB input on the main board is really fragile, but it looks totally fine. I don't know if it's my external hub, or if the board is damaged. Gonna suck if I have to buy a whole new main board for $130. Will defintely be buying a USB daughter board now.

xxracerxx said:
So this is what Jeff Gerstmann was talking about. Looks rad.

Yeah. He mentioned it like a month or so ago too, which is where I first heard about it.

Polyh3dron · Nov 29, 2018

As soon as there is a working Neo Geo core, I am in.

Sectorseven · Nov 29, 2018

What is the arcade support like and how does it work in a practical sense?

For example, would you need one board for Galaga and another for Street Fighter?

MysteryM · Nov 29, 2018

Sectorseven said:
What is the arcade support like and how does it work in a practical sense?

For example, would you need one board for Galaga and another for Street Fighter?

Only certain games are compatible so far, and you load the core you want from a menu. This is for 8 and 16 bit console and computer hardware emulation. E.g the amiga 1200, genesis and snes.

Hero_of_the_Day · Nov 29, 2018

MysteryM said:
Only certain games are compatible so far, and you load the core you want from a menu. This is for 8 and 16 bit console and computer hardware emulation. E.g the amiga 1200, genesis and snes.

SmokeMonster at least seems to think it will actually top out around Saturn and PlayStation. Apparently someone is working on a PSX core now. I asked him how this compares power-wise to the Super NT and was told the Super had 49,000 logic elements vs 110,000 on the MiSTer. That means absolutely nothing to me, other than to say that that second number is much bigger than the first.

Fularu · Nov 29, 2018

I'm still waiting for my aio daughter board

Canada Post beeing on strike is holding it since it left Portugal 17 days ago

Mostly in for the Amiga and ST cores (I love those systems to death)

I made the mistake of purchasing the DE0-Nano first :/

Lesson learned

Hero_of_the_Day · Nov 29, 2018

Man, I am fucking bummed that I can't get my USB to work suddenly. Like I said, the board looks fine, but I don't have any other micro hub to test with it. I have handle this thing pretty gently, so that's crazy if the micro port is seriously that fragile. I would consider the USB daughter board mandatory if that turns out to be the case.

Sectorseven · Nov 29, 2018

What is a logic element, a transistor?

Windrunner · Nov 29, 2018

Any shop in Europe selling these?

MysteryM · Nov 29, 2018

Fularu said:
I'm still waiting for my aio daughter board

Canada Post beeing on strike is holding it since it left Portugal 17 days ago

Mostly in for the Amiga and ST cores (I love those systems to death)

I made the mistake of purchasing the DE0-Nano first :/

Lesson learned

If you don't mind me asking, whom did you order the io board from, was the VGA present? I'm looking for an IO board at the moment, have a slim SDRAM already on its way.

Windrunner said:
Any shop in Europe selling these?

Ordered mine from digikey (https://www.digikey.com/en/product-highlight/t/terasic-tech/de10-nano) arrived in two days to the UK. Sdram via the Atari forums.

MiSTer FPGA System

User requested account closure

▲ Legend ▲

One Winged Slayer

Prophet of Regret

Sly