# Does anyone have a MiSTER FPGA?



## playstays_shun (Aug 7, 2020)

Just got my DE10 nano and USB Hub, waiting on my 128MB SDRAM and heatsink/fan kit, and 256gb microSD but 

Super excited for this one! seems like emulation on crack with real time chip emu, and super impressive results, tons of developer love, and constant support/cores being added


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## The Real Jdbye (Aug 7, 2020)

It looks good, I'm more interested in the N64 FPGA project though. That's the one console I'm the most nostalgic for.


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## playstays_shun (Aug 7, 2020)

The Real Jdbye said:


> It looks good, I'm more interested in the N64 FPGA project though. That's the one console I'm the most nostalgic for.



why not just get a real 64 and everdrive? the lower end everdrive64's aren't that much

I wouldn't recommend it either, since I like supporting Krikzz and would gladly pay more for guaranteed quality... but the clones are even cheaper.

I feel like 64 and Saturn will be some of the more complicated systems to clone or do FPGA emulation with


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## The Real Jdbye (Aug 7, 2020)

playstays_shun said:


> why not just get a real 64 and everdrive? the lower end everdrive64's aren't that much
> 
> I wouldn't recommend it either, since I like supporting Krikzz and would gladly pay more for guaranteed quality... but the clones are even cheaper.
> 
> I feel like 64 and Saturn will be some of the more complicated systems to clone or do FPGA emulation with


I have a real 64. Then I'd have to get an UltraHDMI mod, plus an EverDrive, and that's more money than i can justify spending and I don't even know how hard the UltraHDMI install is. Also I don't really have room to keep it hooked up, a more compact FPGA version would take up less room.


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## Pokemon_Tea_Sea_Jee (Aug 7, 2020)

The Real Jdbye said:


> I'm more interested in the N64 FPGA project though.


please link


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## The Real Jdbye (Aug 7, 2020)

Pokemon_Tea_Sea_Jee said:


> please link


https://gbatemp.net/threads/ultrafp64-the-n64-fpga-project-is-becoming-a-reality.569290/


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## playstays_shun (Aug 7, 2020)

The Real Jdbye said:


> I have a real 64. Then I'd have to get an UltraHDMI mod, plus an EverDrive, and that's more money than i can justify spending and I don't even know how hard the UltraHDMI install is. Also I don't really have room to keep it hooked up, a more compact FPGA version would take up less room.



Fair point on UltraHDMI

I dunno though, even though I've seen the results and they seem great if 64 is your favorite system I wouldn't invest in it either.

The graphics are jank by nature, can only polish a turd so much even turning off anti aliasing and other hardware processing magic.

DCHDMI/now called DCDigtial on the other hand... incredible. Dreamcast graphics still hold up well imo for 20 years old

I guess this is becoming a sought after trend across the board though, and I could see it, like PSDigital looks pretty neat. I guess I discriminate against 64 graphically more than other digital conversion projects out there.

I dont think its a big deal or horrible route to go something like retrotink for all but your favorite system.. if thats 64 then fair enough.


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## Pokemon_Tea_Sea_Jee (Aug 7, 2020)

i hope a good hobbyist will make new top quality crts for us to buy


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## The Real Jdbye (Aug 7, 2020)

playstays_shun said:


> Fair point on UltraHDMI
> 
> I dunno though, even though I've seen the results and they seem great if 64 is your favorite system I wouldn't invest in it either.
> 
> ...


I am hoping maybe the FPGA project will be able to render at a higher resolution, since it's capable of more raw power than the original console. Remains to be seen though. N64 emulation is still buggy though, so FPGA might be the way to go.


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## Pokemon_Tea_Sea_Jee (Aug 7, 2020)

The Real Jdbye said:


> I am hoping maybe the FPGA project will be able to render at a higher resolution, since it's capable of more raw power than the original console. Remains to be seen though. N64 emulation is still buggy though, so FPGA might be the way to go.


im hoping that too + comments on that say its possible The first N64 graphics via fpga - YouTube


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## ubernoobNTH (Aug 8, 2020)

The Real Jdbye said:


> I have a real 64. Then I'd have to get an UltraHDMI mod, plus an EverDrive, and that's more money than i can justify spending and I don't even know how hard the UltraHDMI install is. Also I don't really have room to keep it hooked up, a more compact FPGA version would take up less room.



You don't need UltraHDMI, that's a waste of money anyways on a 64.  Just get a RetroTink or something similar, it has the added bonus of working with anything that uses composite video.  I just bought an 8-in-1-out RCA switcher so I don't have to keep switching my RetroTink 2X (I don't have the newest variant of it, can't speak to that one.  It came out shortly after I ordered mine) between consoles.  Works on any of the old RCA devices I hook up to it.

Not to talk you out of FPGA devices, they're great.  I almost pulled the trigger on a MiSTer last night but I need to do more research on them to see what parts I want to order for myself.


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## The Real Jdbye (Aug 8, 2020)

ubernoobNTH said:


> You don't need UltraHDMI, that's a waste of money anyways on a 64.  Just get a RetroTink or something similar, it has the added bonus of working with anything that uses composite video.  I just bought an 8-in-1-out RCA switcher so I don't have to keep switching my RetroTink 2X (I don't have the newest variant of it, can't speak to that one.  It came out shortly after I ordered mine) between consoles.  Works on any of the old RCA devices I hook up to it.
> 
> Not to talk you out of FPGA devices, they're great.  I almost pulled the trigger on a MiSTer last night but I need to do more research on them to see what parts I want to order for myself.


Not good enough. I can't deal with that blur filter. If my retro gaming setup isn't better than emulation, I'm just going to stick with emulation.
If I had room I could just get a nice CRT and be done with it. Maybe one day...


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## ubernoobNTH (Aug 8, 2020)

The Real Jdbye said:


> Not good enough. I can't deal with that blur filter. If my retro gaming setup isn't better than emulation, I'm just going to stick with emulation.
> If I had room I could just get a nice CRT and be done with it. Maybe one day...



The filter is optional, same as ultraHDMIs.  The only downside to it I've found is it needing power, so it eats up the USB slot on my TV.

You can just choose straight line doubling mode.


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## Sonic Angel Knight (Aug 8, 2020)

Honestly, N64 on real console video output is a huge mess. Two types of video filters... part hardware, part software. I was blown away after seeing it look so clean on virtual console for wii u. But I guess back in 1997 when we still had CRT and RF/composite video, this made sense. What is with nintendo and all their weird video out issues? Not to mention they had that same A/V Composite cable from snes all the way to like... wii I think. Nintendo was always ahead of things with graphics and visual, but lack video out compared to sega systems.


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## The Real Jdbye (Aug 8, 2020)

ubernoobNTH said:


> The filter is optional, same as ultraHDMIs.  The only downside to it I've found is it needing power, so it eats up the USB slot on my TV.
> 
> You can just choose straight line doubling mode.


You misunderstand me. The N64 has a hardware blur filter that cannot be disabled. The UltraHDMI is the only thing that gets rid of it, by reversing it. It's not as good as not having it at all judging from comparisons, but it's close. And it's a night and day difference. So any other solutions for N64 HDMI are shit by comparison.


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## ubernoobNTH (Aug 8, 2020)

The Real Jdbye said:


> You misunderstand me. The N64 has a hardware blur filter that cannot be disabled. The UltraHDMI is the only thing that gets rid of it, by reversing it. It's not as good as not having it at all judging from comparisons, but it's close. And it's a night and day difference. So any other solutions for N64 HDMI are shit by comparison.



Ah yeah, my bad.  

N64 is gonna look like shit no matter how you play it, I prefer sticking to original style here.  To each their own.


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## playstays_shun (Aug 8, 2020)

im glad to go a bit off topic but this thread has been 98% N64, can we get back to MiSTER chat? 

haha

im also surprised there aren't more threads about it considering its a lot of peoples go to for multi-console love. 

especially since Neo Geo hardware is prohibitively expensive, for example


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## Daggot (Aug 8, 2020)

Pokemon_Tea_Sea_Jee said:


> i hope a good hobbyist will make new top quality crts for us to buy


Sadly all of the factories that made them shut down. The tooling for producing new Cathode Ray Tubes was all sold off, mothballed semi permanently or scrapped for parts. It would cost an astronomical amount of money to reequip a factory with the needed tooling to produce CRTs again. Even in China where "new" CRTs are still being produced(these CRTs are of very low quality) these "new" CRTs are produced from a stockpile of new old stock cathode ray rubes and other parts that were left over after production of them stopped. These are of course a finite resource. If you're thinking of gaming in a possible future where CRTs become rare the future you would have more luck investing in an OLED TV and an OSSC/Retrotink.


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## playstays_shun (Aug 13, 2020)

so I got my MiSTER + 128MB SDRAM + 256GB microSD

Holy frigging crap. HDL emulation is an absolute game changer.

if the cores out there interest anyone, I cant recommend this highly enough. What a mind blowing solution and I dont say that all too often


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## wezlyons (Aug 13, 2020)

Been contemplating getting a Mister for a while.
I've got a Super NT, Mega SG and Retrousb AVS so i know how impressive FPGA is when it comes to replicating old machines.

The only problem I can see (for me personally) is that I'd probably spend more time messing about tweaking stuff than I would actually playing games.
I've been down that route before with a raspberry pi, infinite number of games and systems but spend all my time tinkering in the settings.


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## playstays_shun (Aug 13, 2020)

wezlyons said:


> Been contemplating getting a Mister for a while.
> I've got a Super NT, Mega SG and Retrousb AVS so i know how impressive FPGA is when it comes to replicating old machines.
> 
> The only problem I can see (for me personally) is that I'd probably spend more time messing about tweaking stuff than I would actually playing games.
> I've been down that route before with a raspberry pi, infinite number of games and systems but spend all my time tinkering in the settings.



I think the fact it is DIY makes it wayyyyy less popular than it should be. Like, shockingly so.

There really isn't a super ton of tinkering though, and the initial update script downloads all cores automatically for you so you just have to add ROM's + BIOSes for some cores (megaCD and NeoGeo).

The physical modularity of it at first seems overwhelming too, but there's only a few boards outside of the de10 nano base you have to consider (do you plan on powering lots of USB devices and want a tidied package? Get the USB board otherwise opt for the cheap $6 Makerspot and dangle it off microUSB... also do you want to have dual outputs for streaming - go digital io, or want to hook it up to a CRT go standard io.. thats about it) and you can add them as you go down the road. Main thing is cooling, SDRAM, and de10 if you're interested in hooking it up to an HDTV.

the nice thing is its unlike RetroArch when you have to research competing cores for a platform and weigh the pros and cons, because there are downsides to software emulation and have to pick your battles-  each system has one main core and most if not all are as good as perfect.

If you are to tinker with something, its what overlay of video processing you want or button mapping but. Its got just enough granularity without going off the deep end into obscure and irrelevant

--

its cool Analogue makes + sells FPGA clone systems, but I feel like once you get a MiSTer it might make you consider even selling your Analogues. Unless you're just into physical carts / flashcarts (which have benefits like save states for the premium models, only GBA core has save states since real time hardware emulation is tough to pull off with this), or a pretty package.

These are more accurate, and will always be better by being open source and multi platform. I could see enjoying a clone system of your favorite one, but I see no reason to invest in their full array of products it seems like a financial waste imo. Though I'm huge on handhelds and the Analogue Pocket or whatever it is with adapter cores seems pretty cool. Still, not a fan of how they purposefully limit the heck out of preorders every time to contribute to needless hype fests. Theyre of course in it for money, but theyre in a position to make retro more accessible while making money and they dont seem overly interested in that. They are probably marketing masters and have found that it results In better ROI, but I dunno I feel like more units shipped + sold would be even more ROI. But the MegaSG I think is always available, so thats cool.


Its also nuts to me that a company even makes good clones, but nothing can beat free support + devs pouring thousands of hours into this as a labor of love vs. commercial purposes. The developers of this are obsessively driven for preservationist and accuracy purposes.

Then there's always arcade cores, thats where things get really mind bogglingly insane conceptually for me.


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## wiewiec (Aug 13, 2020)

Hi, I am also Mister FPGA user. I have IO board, 128mb sdram, wifi module, 512gb sandisk card etc. I am thinking about getting official USB board or Blisster V2, but if you wanna Blisster you could not use official pcb like case since Blisster is not open source.


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## playstays_shun (Aug 13, 2020)

wiewiec said:


> Hi, I am also Mister FPGA user. I have IO board, 32mb sdram, wifi module, 512gb sandisk card etc. I am thinking about getting official USB board or Blisster V2, but if you wanna Blisster you could not use official pcb like case since Blisster is not open source.



Gonna bump up that SDRAM? I understand 128's only came to market earlier this year though I believe?

edit- never mind looks like you had a typo with 32 

do you have the digital or standard IO? If the latter, what's your CRT use case?

I almost certainly will get a standard IO + svideo Antonio Villena add-on down the road but 1080p w/ integer scaling is really rocking it on my OLED for now


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## wezlyons (Aug 14, 2020)

playstays_shun said:


> I think the fact it is DIY makes it wayyyyy less popular than it should be. Like, shockingly so.
> 
> There really isn't a super ton of tinkering though, and the initial update script downloads all cores automatically for you so you just have to add ROM's + BIOSes for some cores (megaCD and NeoGeo).
> 
> ...


Yeah Analogue have dissapeared up their own backside in recent times.
When I got my Mega SG and Super NT you could just go on their site and purchase, these days they seem to operate on a false scarcity model which does nothing for the average consumer but keeps the ebay scalpers in business.

I'll definitley be looking into getting a Mister at some point, I've been following the developments for a while and have been extremely impressed with what I've seen, especially the arcade ports.


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## smf (Aug 14, 2020)

playstays_shun said:


> Holy frigging crap. HDL emulation is an absolute game changer.



I haven't got a mister yet (see next reply) but I have an Ultimate 64 and having a C64 case with an FPGA based computer in it hooked up to the living room TV is way better than using vice on a PC. Even if I got a mister then the U64 would still get used for C64 stuff.



playstays_shun said:


> I think the fact it is DIY makes it wayyyyy less popular than it should be. Like, shockingly so.



It's not so much the DIY, but that there are just too many options to choose from. You want 128mb of ram, well you need to choose from different products from different sellers based on what cooling, case etc you're going to use. I am not a special snowflake, I don't need something different from everyone else to prove how cool I am. I would prefer there was just one list of parts you had to buy.

Mister will max out soon though, we calculated the other day that it doesn't have enough ram bandwidth for dreamcast. I think even CPS2 is proving tricky. The qsound dsp is a monster, a lot of pc's don't even have the bandwidth for it, most emulators end up hleing it and destroying the effects although now that the dsp was emulated someone has gone back and hle'd it properly (it also helps that the patents have expired).


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## wezlyons (Aug 14, 2020)

I agree that the choice can be a bit daunting, the list of componants you can get for Mister is comprehensive and without really delving into what each core requires it's difficult to know exactly what you need.

The average consumer isn't going to know whether they need a SNAC adapter or a RTC add on e.t.c.
What heatsink do I need? Do I need a fan?

Then they think 'I'll just get a pre made unit off ebay... they want how much???'

It's difficult to explain to those who haven't tried FPGA based devices why they are better, especially when they see the difference in price compared to a rasperry pi or an emulator on your pc.


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## playstays_shun (Aug 14, 2020)

smf said:


> I haven't got a mister yet (see next reply) but I have an Ultimate 64 and having a C64 case with an FPGA based computer in it hooked up to the living room TV is way better than using vice on a PC. Even if I got a mister then the U64 would still get used for C64 stuff.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It’s really not that difficult though

there are lists of recommended resellers regionally

as for cases there are only a few options

You’re confirming my point that at first it seems daunting , the options and lack of clear path , but if you do some research you’ll see it isn’t as limitless as it initially feels. I’d be glad to steer ya in the right direction if the project interests you and you just feel lost or overwhelmed upfront

and I don’t really care that 6th gen and up won’t be supported , and 5th gen is up in the air as well (but there is interest)  , as I already have a Dreamcast with dchdmi and gdemu an an everdrived 64 and a fmcb’d ps2

and a Saturn with phoebe

Saturn and 64 may come but architecturally they’ve always been a wonder. Ps1 core is actively being worked on. And some teasers of n64 have been shown. But expect no eta and assume the project will never see the light in terms of completion for those

as for CPS2 I think it absolutely will happen. but that’s just my impression

—

I always say buy based on what’s already supported not with aspirations for what could be made available and it will be virtually impossible to be disappointed. Any future support is icing on the cake. And given what is available, for me, I absolutely feel it’s worth it. I also wouldn’t worry about the project getting deprecated and moving onto a new board or platform any time soon. MiSTer is still very prolific. Hell MegaCD support just came at the very end of last year, and NeoGeo I believe this year, and 128 boards available this year 

a megaSG and megaSd Or now Mega everdrive pro will set ya back more than a fully loaded MiSTer. Wanna incorporate two retro systems physically? You’re already way over budget

you really don’t want to buy a premod since after you do the install you’ll realize “that was it?” This is plug and play / screw things on not install a modchip w a soldering gun or a spaghetti wiring nesrgb mod


But even then some resellers offer it , like misteraddons in US, and I think if you calculate raw parts he only charges another $30 or so for it vs. doing it yourself. Still I think it’s rewarding to do it yourself and a fun project


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## smf (Aug 14, 2020)

playstays_shun said:


> the options and lack of clear path , but if you do some research you’ll see it isn’t as limitless as it initially feels. I’d be glad to steer ya in the right direction if the project interests you and you just feel lost or overwhelmed upfront



What do you recommend? I kinda gave up when I was told you don't need the mister i/o board but then you need some way to mount a fan.


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## playstays_shun (Aug 14, 2020)

smf said:


> What do you recommend? I kinda gave up when I was told you don't need the mister i/o board but then you need some way to mount a fan.



you're in UK so I looked to this solution:

https://misterfpga.co.uk/product/mister-fpga-fan-and-heatsink/ngoo

Fan and heatsink you mount right on top of the CPU. If you dont care about keeping the thing open air.

This is what I went with:

https://misteraddons.com/products/mister-pcb-fan-plate-and-heatsink b


because I'm in US and wanted to have a top plate on top of this stacked and bottom plate beneath the DE-10 to keep dust out on top / protect the bottom with another layer and for added aesthetic

--

you could probably even get away with just using passive cooling (a heatsink) and re-applying the included see through acrylic plate that ships with the board like this because the Cyclone chip doesn't get crazy hot and has high tolerances anyways:








Or if you're good with a Dremel, you could mod the acrylic case and mount the fan right on top of that (of course its the most complex solution, but I've seen it done and the results look nice)
--
if you have no interest in dual or analog outputs, the io board is a needlessly expensive fan mount.


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## wiewiec (Aug 15, 2020)

playstays_shun said:


> Gonna bump up that SDRAM? I understand 128's only came to market earlier this year though I believe?
> 
> edit- never mind looks like you had a typo with 32
> 
> ...



I had previously 32mb, now i have 128, i have analog io board, you could use Mist cable to SCART output. I am looking also to buy additional boards like USB board, rtc board and analog in board. I think analog board also could be use with digital optical toslink cables since behind headphone jack there is red diode I have not tested it yet.


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## Borgman2018 (Aug 25, 2020)

Daggot said:


> If you're thinking of gaming in a possible future where CRTs become rare the future you would have more luck investing in an OLED TV and an OSSC/Retrotink.



Or just grab a couple now while you can (and they're dirt cheap).


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## Daggot (Aug 26, 2020)

Borgman2018 said:


> Or just grab a couple now while you can (and they're dirt cheap).


Yes this works out better than most people would think. I know a few old computer scientists who thought that the old 2 button IBM "Roller Ball" mouse was the peak of computer peripheral design. They bought them when they were phased out but not yet rare and now they all have 2-3 large boxes full of them each.


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