MiSTer discussion

[kingtreelo]

I've been on the fence about buying a MiSTer for about a year now, i still dont own one, and will explain the reasons why, but i wouldnt mind seeing some impartial views(are there such a thing?)

The reason i am on the fence, is that i own 2 PCs that are extremely capable and run MAME flawlesly, and also any emulator you care to throw at them.

The only thing i can possibly see with the MiSTer that would be an improvement over this is the form factor, but seeing as i already have the space for my PCs it's probably not a biggie.

I must also add, the 8 and 16bit consoles that it replicates(MiSTer) i already own nearly all of them, and i have been told they would be made redundant but i still fire them up and play on them on a weekly basis.

I know most people i have spoke to have said they are great, but is it a replacement for all of my consoles/MAME machines that i need?

 

[tronads]

I have owned a Mister for a few years now, having got one pretty much when they first came out. I don't really use it as often as I should if I am honest, but I do keep it up to date, including trying out the PSX core etc.

I think that you should not consider a Mister as a replacement for your PC's or consoles, more of an addition...something else that may or may not be a better option to use, depending on what you do.
Some points to consider :

1. Output to a CRT TV - Can your Mame PC's do that. The answer to that should I hope be yes, as I would hope you are using Groovymame and CRTEmuDrivers onto a 15khz monitor. For console emulation though I don't think its that straightforward. It is on the Mister.

2. How long does it take you from power up to get into the required emulator and into a game. May not matter to you, but for me I just get irritated having to wait for booting up. The Mister is instantly on and I reckon you can be in pretty much any game on any system within about 20 seconds or less. I just timed it from power on and I was able to get into 1942 Arcade in 10 seconds flat.

3. Quality of emulation with relation to accuracy and input lag etc. Mister on FPGA on a developed core will always be better than Mame - but...in reality, Mame is so good, do we really ever notice it behaving any differently to original hardware?. I know if I dont use Groovymame on a CRT, or Groovymame on my 165hz 1ms gaming monitor, I can feel the difference with regard to input lag, so I never use regular mame.

4. Something I have enjoyed with Mister is with new cores constantly being added, it had brought back the excitment of whats going to be added next that was there in the very early days of Mame.

Just a few points from my personal perspective.

tronads2022-03-03 10:54:41

 

[John Bennett]

The reality with accuracy is that it's entirely dependent on the level of reverse-engineering put into the core (to make use of what an FPGA could bring in terms of timings). On one extreme someone could 'black-box' all sound and video and do things like write their own sprite and 3D engines (kinda how MAME works already)

On the other extreme, someone could decap a chip and model everything down to the transistor level.

It's going to vary core-by-core and would the end-user notice?

And if you're being paid to write stuff via Patreon, then why take the slower, more detailed route?

I think it would come down to the aforementioned things (notably comparing lag and 15kHz behaviour).

The price is looking painful for these though - I feel myself more inclined to look to tinker with Pi(4) based stuff for compact solutions.

John Bennett2022-03-03 12:30:57

 

[Macro]

It depends on the core, some functionality will not be noticed whether it is gate identical or hand crafted code to achieve the same effect, as long as any time constraints are allowed for correctly (i.e. if the original game speed is controlled by a 57hz NMI from the screen flyback, then it needs to run at 57Hz and not at 60Hz just because it works better on some models of CRT)

the number of arguments on the forum because people want to overclock CPU on Neo Geo to stop game slowdown (that occurs on the original) or run it at 60hz to work on their telly is astounding. They really don't like the core writers telling them that they won't do it.

when I did the pattern board code for Astrocade it had to take exactly 4 cycles per byte copied otherwise Gorf and Wizard didn't run correctly (Space Zap was a little more forgiving)

some of the core writers have reverse engineered custom chips and created schematics for PCB's where none existed previously (and made them publicly available - and yes, they have Patreons)

it is very much like early days of mame, not everything is perfect but we are all trying to get there!

Macro2022-03-04 00:00:55