I don't understand complaining about games not running well on hardware emulated 486 that never ran well on a real 486 PC. Duke Nukem 3D, Screamers, Descent 2 ... those all needed at least a Pentium or 5x86 to run decently. If anything, I'd say what you observed highlights just how accurate the 486 emulation is.
I wonder if the MiSTer could replicate a Pentium with 3dfx. If PSX and Saturn can run well which seems to be the case, there might be enough headroom for better PC performance. Descent 2 is a great game, I'd love to have it run well on MiSTer.
@@spotifyseascapessmoothjazz I dunno. PSX and Saturn are both RISC based, which I assume makes them take up less space on an FPGA. Also I think generating higher clock rates needed for pentium emulation is more difficult(although not impossible) since it only has a 50Mhz clock generator
@@timseguine2 There exist more powerful FPGA circuits than DE10-nano that's used for this, but they are more expensive. We might see more ambituous projects in the future if the price drops, but the bigger problem is the higher difficulty in mapping more advanced systems. Core creators use some pretty arcane methods already and I have no idea just what kind of person we'd need to map, say, Dreamcast
@@spotifyseascapessmoothjazz Unfortunately not gonna happen - the AO486 core as it is takes up something like 90% of the FPGA’s units, so it is pretty much running at the limit of the hardware as it sits. The DE-10 Nano is a great fit for this project because of its cost - intel uses it as a loss-leader to get FPGA developers in their ecosystem as opposed to say Xilinx. There are more capable FPGA cores with more resource units, but they are an order of magnitude more expensive so yeah, they ain’t used for gaming like this.
It's totally worth the price. With the accuracy, amount of emulated systems and upgrade options for various I/O. Now compare it to all those mini-consoles that are mostly based on shitty android boards with shitty controllers and the price for every one of them. Nobody can tell me that those old clunky controllers are better than modern wireless gamepad. And if you want you can use any other PC controller that can be mapped including arcade sticks and racing wheel. Mister just kicked all the competition in the ass. It's worth the price just for great Amiga emulation alone.
Your expectations for the AO486 core are a little off. It has '486' in the name of the core for a reason. It's not replicating a Pentium processor. Specifically, it's implementing a 486SX processor.
@@sunekoo It's a problem for many of his videos. He doesn't do an appropriate level of research, which then has him making comments that are very misleading.
@@goldenretrogames Exactly. Having a big built in audience has stopped him trying anymore. It's a shame as his videos used to be really good. Now he's just worth a quick look before you search for a more indepth/accurate video.
The Mister is worth it's weight even if its just to play CPS2 games. The idea of having a 1:1 arcade perfect version of street fighter 2 super turbo at home... I love it.
All you actually need to dip your toes in this, is a de10nano, those are 150, to run everything you can get away with around 200, in many cases the complete kit is not necessary, and you can upgrade along the way.
Not quite, you need the DE10-Nano and an OTG hub (which can be cheap) and you really want the SDRAM or you can only play a few cores. But the point remains that you can get by with a fully functional system for around $250
@@dinierto Most cores are fully playable without the SDRAM upgrade. The main things that need SDRAM are NeoGeo and 32mb GBA games and a couple other things. You can 100% have a working MiSTer setup on a budget and build from there.
@@AngryGhost114 yes, it's true, you really only need the DE10-Nano and an OTG board. I always recommend the SDRAM though because many of the popular cores people will want to play require it, and it's only $50. But definitely important to be aware of what you can play with which hardware to make that decision
The low performance on 3D games is the lack of a simulated FPU (floating point unit) on the 486 core. It runs like an Intel 486 SX would if it was clocked about approximately 90Mhz (which is a processor that never existed). Real Intel 486 SX processors capped out at 33Mhz. This shouldn't affect many games designed for maximum performance on 486 systems and most games designed to run on a at least a 486 SX system. Issues start to crop up with some (mostly 3D) games that released after the Pentium was introduced (1993) and expected a performant FPU to be present. Non-intel "586" processors like the Cyrix 5x86 with slow FPUs had similar performance issues at the time.
Yep. sx 486 was slow as hell even for regular old Doom. Just not a good enough processor for those early 3d games. It seems to be running them fine for what it is emulating. A pentium 133 or 166 would be the logical next core.
I would like to say that most (if not all) 2.5D games like Doom, Duke 3D or Hexen don't use FPU at all. So lack of the FPU unit is not an issue. The first major 3D game that required FPU was Quake and that game needs at least Pentium to run properly anyway.
MiSTer is a off shoot of the MIST project .Which was mainly focused on FPGA implementation of Amiga and Atari ST .These are some of the best cores on MiSTer which weren't talked about unfortunately .I was disappointed MJR compared the MiSTer to a arm based Multi System when it truth it should be compared to a Analogue styled device
Your history lesson just gave me insight into why it is called MIST. Am I right then that MIST comes from MiniMig for Amiga and the ST from Atari ST? Or is there an actual acronym at play here?
@@DeathBoy2098 TBH I do value MJR's opinion but when you compare the cores of MiSTer against the Analogue .The MiSTer gives you much greater bang for buck .RPI's are cheap but they come with many more compromises cycle accuracy is a big one
@@marymarshall8847 It does depend quite a bit on the core and the game. For instance, here at least is frame accurate CPS2, something that is a huge leap forward for the fighting game community: ruclips.net/video/EblLG8geeQU/видео.html
Looked to me it only had issues with 3D games, and after all, 3Dfx made a fortune addressing slow 3D rendering on 386 and 486 machines (until ATI & nVidia clipped their wings)
Yeah he did the same thing with his review about the steam deck. "Why won't it play GOG games out of the box, why do I have to do these extra steps but not for games on steam." For a device named the Steam Deck😅
I would like to mention that setup of the MiSTer is not as difficult as it's portrayed here. It's actually as easy as Retropie (for a basic installation) and ultimately much easier if you throw in the tweaking, Metadata scraping, etc. that is generally involved in Retropie. There's a script called update_all that installs all the basic cores and sets up the directories for you. Basically write image to disk, run it once, setup controller, add update_all, add roms, play games.
@Ivan Zhao What he means is that it's simple to get to a retropie install stage. You download an image as with retropie, flash it to an sd card and then run a simple setup script that does everything with no user input. All you are left to do then is add roms. This is simple as they sit on a fat32 part of the sd card so you can do it over network or direct from your main PC/MAC. It really is quite easy.
@@zakanpeki5546 that's a great point that's perfectly valid. There's a lot of shaming and gatekeeping on both sides trying to make people feel bad about choosing one or the other but really people just need to look at the options and educate themselves. So long as you know the differences and advantages of each there's not a wrong choice. We all love playing retro games so let's have fun!
@@zakanpeki5546 It is not "Just as good" please don't speak shit about something that you haven't even used, the last part you are right about though... a rpi is usually more than enough for most.
Don't expect the mister to run anything from after 1995. The ao486 core is already pushing the FPGA to it's limits, and it doesn't even have a floating point unit (so it's really a 486sx and not a 486dx). Adding a Pentium core with Voodoo support, or a Dreamcast core is not going to fit on the FPGA. PS1 and Sega Saturn are the upper limits.
@@namegoeshere69 It's getting better and better. It is rather expensive, but I'm happy with mine. There's even an experimental option to run the Sinden lightgun on it. I haven't gotten it to work well yet, but I was able to shoot a few ducks with it.
@@mortimore4030 the problem with pointing out the n64 core to 3 year old comments is the n64 core wasn't considered possible 3 years ago, yet alone in the state it is now.
You were just loading the Rambo "picture" file - the game is a separate file in that D64 (disk image)... I have a lot of interest in the MiSTer, but it's affording the hardware and the time to do it justice.
This thing is an Analogue NT, Super NT, MegaSG, NeoGeo, all with flashcarts as well as just about arcade perfect CPS1 and CPS2. The 486 core is super early but the above and more are amazing and worth the $250 it would take to get you going. The IO board, custom Usb Hub, and fancy case are just extras really.
@@arminius504 Nobody forces you to do a thing, you can spend an insane amount of money to buy original consoles or analogue consoles in which you can put your original cartridges or you can buy a Mister and download every game for every consoles that can run on Mister for free, I chose the free option because all of my retro games and consoles got stolen by a junky, I'm not paying for the same consoles and games a second time.
@@arminius504 Technically it can if you know how to program. You know those gameboy/snes/Genesis cartridge extractor for PC? Yeah it can just extract those things and load it up in it's ram which is way faster than those cartridge.
@@arminius504 Add a little RFID sticker to every original game, then hook up a scanner to a small SBC like RPi with a database/xml list of all your games. Pass the game media over top of the scanner to automatically ID the game and have the RPI load the core/ROM in Mister. Not sure if anyone has that going on Mister, but someone was already working on remote front ends running on other systems for it.
Playing some old sierra games on the 486/Amiga cores with the mt32-pi (Roland MT-32 emulator) is phenomenal. Giving it new life to some old school games!
If you care about accuracy, it's worth every penny. A good chunk of my original hardware is now either packed up or sold off. Digital and analog outputs on a little box is ridiculously nice, it's so easy to swap between my gaming monitor and PVM. And now with PS1 and even Saturn looking like real possibilities, the future of the MiSTer is looking pretty amazing.
But the price is steep. We're talking 600 Dollars for the bare minimum, for the board and a 128MB expansion board. Although the price is reasonable in comparison to the original hardware this can replace.
It really isn't worth every penny, though. It would've been if it were to come out 10+ years ago, when most PC+Linux emulation was worried more about getting games to run at all than accuracy, but most emulators at this point already do incredibly well on PC, to the point where it's little, if any, different than playing on the original console, even on a crappy computer. In reality, it's a glamorized emulation box that does less than a PC does, sometimes negligibly better, with fewer options, at a high price point. Unless you're just someone who likes tinkering with your system more than using it to game, it's just not worth it.
@@tarstarkusz what? That's not even remotely true. You can get a complete setup with IO, USB, and SDRAM for as low as $450. While steep, it's not as ridiculous as you're talking.
Hi Jason, I love your videos, however, I think you are fundamentally missing the technical details of what an FPGA is. FPGAs are used in every vertical modern tech industry, because it also you to build an implementation, in hardware (via the programmable gate arrays), a chip. The DE-10 is a development board meant for aviation, medical, automotive and industrial applications. The typical use would be to design your chip, take that design and have the chip manufactured. Think of it as a flexible platform to enable engineers to rapidly produce designs that can be shipped to a chip manufacturer. The MiSTeR project works so well because the SOC (with ARM cores) is able to run Linux and that allows for flexible loading of "cores" to the FPGA. What you are experiencing via the project is not emulation, it's a re-implementation of circuitry from the original hardware. The Arcade cores are reverse engineered via schematics and taking probes to boards. Some of the cores do have bugs, however, the accuracy exists because it's a modern representation of the physical components. That is a massive distinction between emulators and using an FPGA core. The easiest way to think about it is like this: the NES core will be more accurate than an emulator, because it's an actual NES - the chips and circuitry are just implemented via flexible platform that allows you to load and unload those circuits. For 3D acceleration hardware to exist, that hardware needs to be implemented as an extension to the core, or a separate implementation of the old 3dFX hardware (I'm suspecting there's not enough room on the DE-10 to do that). Also, many, many people use this strictly as an console implementation and not just arcade core loading. It's worth doing some research on this, not only because you have such a great reach with your subscribers, but because it can hurt of diminish the work of the many developers who are performing the act of preservation (MiSTeR is almost like the hardware equivalent of something like MAME). Keep up the good work and I hope this information helps you.
While you're correct with everything, MJR has never really been about the technical details. This isn't the channel for that. He comes from a more enduser/fan perspective. If Jesus put your above info in a video I would have noped out of the video or just fell asleep and I'm sure others would have too. He didn't "miss" your info, it's just not his usual thing. If you want to know more about MiSTer's technical explanations, there's other channels for that.
@@jasperfredrickson4420 it's not because he doesn't want to bog down his channel with technical details.. he clearly doesn't understand the FPGA technology. it's pretty obvious.
I remember running both Duke Nukem 3D and Screamer on an actual 486 and yeah, that's exactly what they look like. Looks like the MISTer is emulating a 486 pretty much perfectly to me.
I had 486 DX2 50 MHz. Duke was basically unplayable on it because there were many slowdows hindering your ability to aim. Screamer wasn't really smooth but it was playable (at least in 320x200/240 mode).
The biggest advantage of a CRT is response time!! The whole game doesn't blur the moment things start moving quickly, like they do on the VAST majority of flatscreens.
had the mister for a couple years, loved it so much and put my super nt, mega sg, and core grafx 2 with super sd system 3 on ebay in the last few weeks. Worth every penney
I built one. I have an extensive console and game library. My problem is that I'm never home because I'm a trucker. The MiSTer allows me to take most of my retro library on the go for month on end. Even though my build has the analog I/O board, I've never hooked it up to my CRT; I use that board exclusively for stack completion within the case, heatsink fan, and the three hardware I/O buttons. When I'm home, the real consoles are already hooked up on switchers, so I never felt the point.
Usually love your vids but this one is somewhat of a miss. The MISt is all the analogue consoles in one and much much more. Sure you can't insert carts or cd's but this is by far the best solution for all retro platforms!!
Yes, although there are solutions for converting most of those formats if you know what you're doing. I personally don't regret buying one, it's fantastic not having to mod every one of my consoles to output decent video quality onto my LCD or worry about sourcing a proper CRT. I have a feeling that these will be around for many years to come and will probably be compatible with some future FPGA chips with more power.
@@GodleyX the biggest selling point to this is a lot tighter latency. Getting as close to zero latency as possible is crucial for older games that relied on twitch reaction time. Another thing is the video quality. Being able to use an old CRT allows the games to be played using the video technology the developers would've been expecting to further tighten the timing.
I’ve had one for a year and a half. I use it with a Sony Trinitron CRT Tv and 2 wired 8bitdo controllers. It’s like having 20 Analogue consoles in one, only Mister gets updates on a weekly basis. There’s no reason not to own one if you’re into retro gaming.
Makes sense for some, who just want to play the games. I prefer jailbroken Analogue consoles, authentic controllers, and original carts. They are pricey but it's worth it to me, I value the plug and play nature of Analogue products and their sleek designs.
Blister cores are forked and a bit of a pain to keep updated. I would just deal with the whopping 1ms USB lag through whatever USB converter, it isn’t noticible outside of light guns and you can use SNAC for those.
I did not think this would be worth the cost for the whole kit in the nice MISTer Addons aluminum case at first. I was wrong. This is the best retro gaming purchase I have made. It not only supports all the console and handhelds I wanted to play, but it has really made me fall in love with the Atari ST and Amiga. Two computers I could never afford as a kid.
Also, it's worth every penny compared to buying each individual emulator separately. Sure it's not 100%, but very close and it's an all in one with nearly latency free analog and digital video out. ;)
The RetroCastle kit also seems pretty nice and it's very compact. Sure, you end up with just 4 USB ports instead of 7, but I rarely ever use more than 3. But I'm not gonna lie, that MiSTerAddons case also looks absolutely stunning.
I have the original MiST (~$250) that the MiSTer is based on. The original MiST was intended to just accurately reproduce the Amiga (500/1000) and Atari ST 16-bit computers (Mi = Amiga/ST = ST) and can support higher end 680x0 CPUs, but the MiSTer was expanded with a faster FPGA and other add-ons.
Love the channel, but dude you pretty showed the worst mister has to offer. The 486 core is still relatively new and most people I’ve seen use it for console emulation which is amazing. And they are already developing ps1 and Saturn. You can see early tests online now.
One other important peice to note are the cores for the portable systems; Gameboy/Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance, Lynx, Game ear, etc... Other than consolizing an actual handheld unit MiSTER is currently the most accurate and least laggy way to play any of these systems on a monitor and/or television.
From my memories of trying to run those 3d games on a 486 DX/2 66mhz: Looks about right, I'd say. My old machine really struggled with those 3D titles, with only a really small number of exceptions…
I also had the DX2 66mhz. Performance were better than the Mister core. I mean, I never had problems running Descent or Doom. I remember having worked a lot on NASCAR to make it playable. The best I got was around 17-20 fps... all low details and probably 320x200 😂
MiSTER is worth it if you want: Bit perfect reproduction Are worried about input lag caused by hardware such as your PC/USB Want to output to a PVM or CRT via an analog signal that matches original hardware Don't already own retro hardware with all the games you want to play For most people, a Pi is more than enough. This is for enthusiasts who want to get as close to original hardware as possible without having to invest in original hardware. Even if you paid $400 (you can buy just the parts you need and I got away with $300) you would be saving money IF you have to invest in retro hardware and want to play them on a modern TV. Just estimating: NES - $50. If you want RGB output for OSSC, add $200 unless you can solder it yourself SNES - $100 Genesis - $70 SegaCD - $130 OSSC - $150 Base for those 4 systems is about $500. Oh, and THEN you get to buy games for these retro systems where the prices have gone absolutely stupid. So yeah, if you don't have any retro hardware and want all the capabilities I listed at the top, then the MiSTER is worth it. If all you want is the least expensive emulation option with HDMI output, go with the Pi for a lot less money.
@@ionmyke so do I lol. I like taking MiSTER with on vacations and such and also move it around the house. Not easy or fun to move the OSSC and whatever systems I want to play. I don't have a CRT or PVM. If I tried that, I'd probably be divorced.
In general yes, but keep in mind that with the Mister you do also have to source the ROMs, and the hardware to do that isn't necessarily always the easiest to obtain. I'm lucky enough to be able to dump most of the common systems from Atari 2600 up until the N64 as well as some of the disc based systems.
Use it to play old consoles, specifically Genesis, SMS, Sega CD, Turbografx, etc. Love it. Maybe it is the extremely low lag, or the look on screen, but I can always advance much further in the game through MiSTer than I ever could through emulation, pi, or even the collections on modern consoles. Hands down best system I have ever owned.
Note: Sega MegaCD core has 2x 68000 chips plus others. The real hardware is bulky and mk1 prone to breakdown, so this is the boon of FPGA. I've got a MegaSD and all the SegaCD games on my SD card... I use the JVC WonderMega bios for a different jingle. BTW, mega everdrive Pro has MegaCD on its FPGA now. When you add up all the prices of the other FPGA solutions out there, MiSTer is a compelling all in one solution. To the person saying don't buy the Analogue consoles.... I don't agree, they are really cool, Kevtris cores are exceptional. Great if you have original games. $190 a piece for SNES & SMD support. I hope they make a Neo Geo again.... however MiSTer is the best value solution for this . If all the above is too costly then software emulation is the way to go. People are spoiled for choice these days, really.
@@flogjam Sega CD looks so good on MiSTer. As for Analogue, I do love my MegaSG but find I play MiSTer much more, but only out of convenience. I will, if they open up to regular people again, purchase an Analogue Pocket. Getting FPGA in handheld will be spectacular.
@@billford171 Analogue is the luxury version of FPGA, with a rockstar programmer/engineer on the payroll. MiSter is for the people. You are paying for that. I will be getting a MiSTer at some point. I have Miss-FPGA (MIST) which is close enough . Cyclone 3 vs 5 though.
@@flogjam I don't get why people say the Mega / Sega CD Model 2 is "more reliable", yes it has a flap up lid for the disc drive but it has otherwise poorer build quality and likes to blow fuses.
The real Jewel in the MiSTer's crown it its Amiga core. It really is superb. I have a HD workbench install and a WHDLoad games library. The accuracy is astounding.
@@MetalJesusRocks when you get around to trying the Amiga core (minimig) be sure to follow this guide for the easiest set up with complete game library. It’s an absolute treasure trove!!! ruclips.net/video/SfrQXeBb49Y/видео.html
Totally agree man. The clue is in the name. A(Mi)ga ST . WHDload is great for launching games that would've been on multiple floppies 💾. An Amiga 1200 with a ram board is about the same cost as a MiSTer . The 8bitsforever boards are around €150 but require an Amiga case/keyboard. Runs all the main cores and does not require a DE10 nano.
Yes and as of a couple weeks ago, there was preliminary support available for the Sinden Light gun. Not to mention that there's been a great deal of progress in general made since this video was uploaded.
Low latency is a huge reason to use FPGA for console emulation. Another factor driving usage is 8 and 16 bit computer support where one can explore other systems like Acorn or Plus 4 and not have to deal with finding expensive hardware off eBay, PAL v NTSC displays, power differences, technical issues due to age like keyboard membranes, etc etc.
A lot of his points are misleading I have a MISTer and absolutely love it so please don’t take his word as gospel do your homework .. you definitely won’t be disappointed if you buy a MISTer
I would say I am a fan of the MiSTer. ;-) For the DOS side, you just have to know the limits and you can have a great time. 486 66SX not DX or below and everything should feel like it did in the early 90's. I did include game examples that pushed the limits for the purpose of the Devs having something easy to test against, if development picks back up on the AO486 core.
Mister is the future of preserving these games. As somebody that’s plays pretty hardcore I can vouch that mister is a great investment. Better to get into sooner than later, get yourself acquainted. It’s a simulation experience more than emulation experience.
@hjf4a2 A company? It's an open-source community project where hardware is replicated in either Verilog or VHDL which can be reasonably easily ported to other FPGA platforms. You're completely misinformed on what this box is.
I got the MiSTer mainly for consoles, specifically for SNES. I still have muscle memory from growing up playing tons of Super Nintendo and with the inherent lag in software emulation, my muscle memory gets tripped up a lot. As much as I like the SNES Classic or Retroarch, I wasn't having that much fun, I thought I was getting bad at the games. Then I got the MiSTer mainly for the low latency and it's a game changer. Muscle memory kicked in and I went through Super Mario World, Donkey Kong Country 1-3 without missing a beat. It felt exactly as I remembered from back in the day. Can't wait for the PS1 and Saturn cores btw.
@@DisgruntledPigumon for me it was noticable. I guess I'm more sensitive to input latency, at least for the games I played a lot growing up. For example, when I got the SNES classic, I was excited to replay Donkey Kong Country. There was one level on the ice world that kept giving me troubles (might've been the first one, there was a part with small platforms and tons of flying birds coming at you during a raging blizzard. There's also the barrel section). I kept dying over and over, it was very frustrating. I thought I was bad at the game or getting old (I'm only 36 though lol!). Never got past that level and didn't replay it until a few years later on the MiSTer. I breezed through the game without missing a beat, that hard level, first try. I promptly 100% the DKC trilogy back to back and it was great! It just FELT right. It's hard to explain. So for me, I can notice the difference. :)
@@DisgruntledPigumon I recently played through Mega Man 2 on the Legacy Collection and played through it on the MiSTer immediately afterward. Huge difference. There are maneuvers I can pull off flawlessly on an FPGA that I don't dare try on subpar emulation. Now - modern emulators have a lot of options for reducing input lag. I honestly can't tell the difference between my MiSTer and bsnes with the lag reduction option set to 1. But if I'm playing one of the retail collections, they're playable, but it feels sluggish and I have to play a lot more conservatively than I want to, which isn't nearly as fun. I beat all the Mega Man X games without upgrades back when I had a CRT. If X's jump feels even a little sluggish it throws me off. I think someone unfamiliar with these games would be just fine with most emulators because I think what I've been able to do with these games would be possible for someone who trained their muscle memory according to the emulator's timing vs. the original hardware, but I know these games well enough that most emulators will never feel right.
@@DisgruntledPigumon On some games it's a lot more noticeable than with others. If you just want an example of how lag can make a hard level become nearly impossible to tackle, check 1991 Battletoads Clinger-Winger. Any mistakes, either yours or lag-induced, are cumulative on this level. But it's also worth pointing out that just using a MiSTer doesn't mean you get no lag, it only gives you no lag when using a CRT either with an Analog Board or with a decent external video DAC. Playing through HDMI on default settings likely adds 1 or 2 frames worth of lag but you can change settings to fix that... won't work with some very cheap/crappy TVs, but should work with most/all decent TVs and any computer monitor that's not complete garbage. Video lag is not the only kind of lag... controller lag is also something you should be mindful of on games where any lag can trip you up. Using a bluetooth controller is probably the single worst thing you can do in this regard. If you're using wireless, at least get a 2.4GHz dongle instead of bluetooth. I would recommend you either get a low-lag wired USB controller or use a SNAC adapter to play with original controllers on more "hardcore" games. The NES had a bunch of games where the lag of an emulator on an underpowered machine or even on the MiSTer, using a crappy HDMI TV and a Bluetooth controller, can make your gaming session absolutely miserable. Punch Out, Battletoads, Tetris, SMB2J, Mega Man... It doesn't mean you can't play those games on a RetroPie or something like that, just that you won't be able to perform as well, you'll have to "play it safe" and it's going to be a lot harder than the game was on real hardware. For controllers, search for "rpubs misteraddons inputlatency", for video DACs, search "kuro mister fpga dac"... There are many settings you can play with to improve latency on the MiSTer, the two main ones are vsync_adjust if you want to play over HDMI and fast polling if you're using USB instead of SNAC.
It’s my favorite toy in a long time. Really enjoy the tinker aspect of it and am building an arcade cabinet to house it along with a consumer crt with s-video connected to it via a vga converter. Amazing results. Love that it’s an evolving project and new arcade cores are coming out monthly. Keeps it exciting.
I would say no when you're spending $250-350. Much cheaper Raspberry Pi and I want to mention new-old stock Windows 10 ThinkCentre PC. Those have DisplayPort and VGA out and run PS1 at full speed and DOSBox of course. Zero effort to setup, I mean, it's a PC. I don't notice 1 frame of input lag. $15 used ATI card for 15k / 240p, now that takes setup.
@@soccerstar99 you notice no lag means nothing. Most people dont notice the input lag. If you had a MiSTer you would know its superior to emulation and much more efficient running at 7w. I dont want an old PC and its much more complicated than setting up a MiSTer.
@@ninetendopesaitama2107 Thank you, I like MiSTER except the cost and N64 cutoff. I want to see a test suite comparing MiSTer to software emulation. SNES core ported byuu/Near's C++ code so I doubt more accurate. PC easy with OS pre-installed but is a power hog.
One thing to note about the SNES and NES cores is that you can play them at the native refresh rate over HDMI (if you have a display that supports 60.09 Hz, which most PC monitors should), which you cannot do with Analogue devices. With the Analogue Nt mini and Super Nt, there's a tradeoff between using a framebuffer and getting tearing or dropped frames, or running the games slightly slower than native speed. The latter option is not perceivably different when playing, but MiSTer is definitely better for speedrunners and the like, as you can save several seconds over the course of an hourlong run without any visual issues.
Very interesting. IIRC the MiSTer doesn't do that by default, you have to change MiSTer.ini and change vsync_adjust to 1 or 2. I guess it was left on zero to avoid compatibility issues with some really crappy cheap HDMI TVs and to avoid screen blanking for resyncing after resolution and timing changes. Maybe the SuperNT also has an option somewhere to use native framerate?
When it comes to the consoles, you're right that there is nothing special about playing the regular suspects over HDMI. The real value is in the rgb/component analog output for each console, which is VERY expensive otherwise.
I own a mister and really love it. I mainly use it for console cores as the latency and accuracy is unmatched in my opinion even the Nintendo online service has too much input lag to properly enjoy the games, therefore it provides me with everything I could wish for
This feels like the kind of work my kids do when they're made to do something they don't really want to do, l ike taking the bins out. Clearly MJR's heart was not in this one.
My childhood was all 16 and 32 bit consoles, and have been playing on emulators recently.I went back to actual hardware and was blown away. Even the fastest software emulators can’t replicate the original experience. To have something like this exist and emulate all of those machines at that price point is worth it imo
Taki Udon is currently working on cloning the DE10 nano hardware as well as the ram modules for a fraction of the price Terasic currently sells them for
Not enough hype. Best investment in retro tech i ve ever made. Worth every cent. :) The title is misleading. You can start with the de10 nano + 128 sdram + heatsink +usb hub =240€. You dont need the i/o board if you are just using hdmi TVs /monitors.
I had a 486 dx2 back in the day and those games ran just as you show'em here. For better framerates I needed to disable sound or lower graphic options. If MiSTER has a 486 core and not DosBOX, it's probably doing its job just fine and not a performance or emulation problem.
Screamer is a game that actually is a game that is in the beginning of the p4 era needing a 1.0GHz P4 to run at acceptable framerates in software mode... so a 486 @~90MHz won't cut it :P
I think a huge appeal not mentioned here is the support for the Amiga. AFAIK, Amiga emulation has never been great due to the timings of all the custom chips. That’s where a processor that thinks it’s all these chips comes into its own. In terms of arcade emulation, my understanding is that the MAME project is progressing at a good pace, and many issues have been fixed in newer versions of the application and ROMs themselves. But for the most accurate performance, you’d need a beefy PC.
I think you undersold the console element here. Perfect replication of consoles is just as valuable as the arcade stuff. To be honest arcade stuff is still better served by MAME given the vast support it has over Mister right now. But for console there is nothing that competes with Mister.
I thought long and hard about getting one. But it is the price that just kills it for me. I recently resurrected up an older computer, installed RetroArch and a bunch of other stuff on it, and connected it on my wife and I's bedroom HDTV and it has worked out great, and I didn't spend much at all to do that. It plays all the stuff that I would want out of a Mister and more. The latency is great too with this method. Not to mention if I'm really desperate for authentic gameplay I still have my old NES, Genesis, and SNES with flash carts in them connected to an old CRT.
Ever since returning in January, this has been the most common question I've gotten: "Zophar: What do you think of the MiSTer?" Well, I'm gonna find out as I just bought one today. Thanks for the review MetalJesus - very helpful!! :)
if you are a big fan of fighting games no body beats mister it offers no lag game play no OS to fuck up the game play but you still need a pie to play the other stuff it cant play. asking MetalJesusRocks about this is pointless the guy has no clue what the hell he is talking about
Look at the arcade selection first (also keep in mind that the NeoGeo is listed as a “console”) and decide if it has enough arcade games for you. It does less games than mame but the games it does do will be (usually) more accurate and have 0 lag.
Pi is just standard emulation, so software based emulation.. FPGA is hardware emulation, quicker so unlikely to get software lag and input lag. FPGA is the nearest thing to real hardware when it comes to any sort of emulation.
This is by far the worst MiSTer review out there. $450? No, $170 for a de10-nano, $15 or a 32MB SDRAM module, a bit more for 128MB if you care about NeoGeo or CPS2. Setup is difficult? Run an installer and copy over the update_all script. Most people use it for arcade? No, people use it for the systems they are nostalgic for. That might be arcade but it also could be Amiga, Atari ST or consoles. Comparing it to one of the mini systems? This is where you miss the point the most! Cycle accurate reaction of nearly every system up to the mid 90s or a single system emulated on an ARM CPU. Mini consoles are a bit of a joke, just buy a Raspberry Pi. C64 is defaulted to PAL? Yes C64 had way more support in PAL regions than NTSC regions, this is not a problem with the system, you go to the menu and select NTSC. This is the biggest hidden gem of your RUclips carer and you made a mess of the review. If you are a retrogamer just buy one. It is the best investment you can make.
I love my mister and have had it for about a year and a half. The console cores are spectacular. They have a very easy to use cheat system that is very convenient. Don’t overlook that feature. Nes and other cores have save states. Snes runs at a higher resolution too. Well worth the money and better than the competition in my opinion.
The "tall and skinny monitor" that was in arcade cabinets were just sideways CRTs, that's why it default displays sideways if your TV isn't on its side. There was actually an option to play Gunbird 2 I think it was on Sega Dreamcast back in the day that way, I used to do it to have a bigger image.
👍 exactly, anyone with any knowledge of history in videogames knows the Yoko/Tate is the orientation of the CRT and its relative rotation of image displayed.
Japan videogaming phrasing :Tate height (90deg) and Yoko Width (standard position). Sega Saturn shooters are another prime example of the display in Tate mode. Some of the most early arcade games inc. Scramble use that Tate type display. However, you can get CRT outputs from Pi - with add on av out options - for emulation of retro on a CRT in RGB its not purely a mister only thing...
While 100% accuracy is possible, it's also not guaranteed. It all depends on how well cores are coded but that's also dependent on how well documented original hardware is or how far core developers are willing to go to research original hardware. A lot of the cores are based on the exact same documentation available to create emulators.
while this is true, software emulation isn't going to get cycle acurateat reasonable performance levels any time soon. The developer working on implementing the ps1 core also made a cycle accurate ps1 emulator and it would take an about 9ghz cpu to get it to run at full speed, but the mister should handle it fine, it takes a lot less silicon to get that kind of thing working on fpga
It’s my main work house for systems-This is great for someone returning to Retro Gaming, you have access to most games and systems and makes it easy to play most.
I have a MiSTer hooked up to the TV in my living room and--next to a Switch--it's the only piece of gaming hardware I have up there. All of the various mini consoles can stay in their boxes, it does them all. So I'm glad that it does all of the 8 and 16-bit consoles so very well. PS1 support is coming, the core already plays some homebrew games. I assembled mine piece by piece. First got the DE10 with just the RAM &Clock module and the I/O board, later I bought an USB-expander (because I put all of my games on a HDD) and a nice case.
Interesting that you say you don't envision the MiSTer's primary purpose as being for console games. To me, that was the whole point. Get all of these systems in one tiny unit so there aren't all these devices taking up space under the tv and cables going everywhere. The arcade cores are just the cherry on top, IMO (AvP, OMG).
It's pretty cool. Once these games and systems become too expensive and too rare and hard to come by, these sorts of devices will be a great option for preservation and playability into the future.
Been looking at building a custom arcade cab, mostly for CPS2/3 stuff, and this is likely the best option. Don't know much about modding other than the usual tutorial/cut/paste stuff, so good to hear getting set up is manageable for someone like me. Thanks for the input, and rock on MJR!
don't forget to play neogeo as well runs amazing i couldn't believe it, i have an mvs-1b board and supergun setup i couldn't tell them apart at gunpoint lol
If youre only going to run arcade games on your cab I would suggest a PC based groovymame setup instead of this. That is assuming you're going be using an 15khz arcade CRT monitor, which you should be,it looks the best.
The C64 joystick port thing is because Commodore said port 1 was the standard, but the issue was that joystick port 1 would register key presses, so if the game utilised the keyboard, you'd use port 2, and at some point(I think 87 or so) it pretty much become standard for all games to use port 2 for player 1.
MegaSG (Jailbroken, giving 100% compatibility, 5 cores) + SuperNT (Jailbroken, giving 90-something-% compatibility, 1 core) = $480 for six consoles. MiSTer (DE10 Nano, 128MB RAM, OTG USB Hub, All cores above plus ### more, with more being added all the time) = $237. You'd spend most of $237 on just an FXPAK Pro. MiSTer isn't expensive. Clone consoles and ROM carts are.
It's intended for the folks that really care about these things. And, I personally bought one and I'm glad that I did. Even just using an emulator on a PC gets expensive over time due to the electricity involved alone.
I guess the RMC crowd has already been here and suggested the MiSTer Multisystem, a consolised addon board/case for the FPGA Dev board, it looks so cool!
Costs would be in the thousands because of the scale of the market. Remember they could sell CRT's for $300 because there were hundreds of millions of worldwide customers. Making a new fabrication plant would be expensive, so each customer would have to share that cost.
I would love to have seen where CRT tech might have headed, if the market hadn't ended. I think we may have seen very slim CRTs, with modern inputs, as well as classic inputs. A much smaller footprint, lighter in weight, and dead-flat screens. Included Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Ethernet, etc...
@@mrkirk4944 Hitachi was working on something called SED. It was basically an array of micro electron guns, each pixel triad had it's own. Unfortunately it lost out to LCD.
I've had my first one setup in a MiSTer Addons PCB case for a couple of years. When the aluminum cases came out I bought a fully assemble unit with aluminum case, and extra aluminum case and the newer boards to update my older setup. I've loved the project since I first got one and it get better by the week. It's VERY close to playing on original hardware. I would be lying if I said I don't wish it had save and cheat features like the highest end EverDrive carts. The MiSTer is expensive as a full setup with 128MB RAM but they are worth every penny. I REALLY like the "update all" script. I find a new Arcade game almost ever time I run the script and let it update. Glad to see you jump in. The model you have in the video is as good as it gets thus far. Maybe, just maybe there will be machined aluminum cases for the MiSTer. If they are ever available fully machined and anodized I'll buy a couple for sure.
Regarding the 486 core, it's worth remembering that the core has the potential to be further enhanced in the future. Currently it behaves something like at 50 MHz 486SX. Hopefully one day it will be more like a 100 MHz 486DX
That's a hard game, it got a bit easier when I realized that it's part fighting game and part puzzle game. You have to take the right path through the game if you want to make that next stage and you have to be good enough at fighting not to run out of resources before you finish.
Too bad Screamer didn't work properly it was one of the best racers I played back then, I had Nascar as well I remember it was a 4 floppy disks. Nice device and great video thank you.
@@MetalJesusRocks That needs about a 1GHz Pentium4 to run a acceptable framerates in software mode, so it looks about right getting maybe a frame per second on a 486SX 90MHz...
The arcade support, as I understand, is also because there is some addons that let you hook up your MiSTer to some if not most classic arcade cabinets, and may let you replace a broken game with the same game or a multi game setup, given how Japanese astro city cabinets and such exist. Of course, this is more expensive as those addons to mister are VERY specialized but also understandable as you'd want something like it instead of emulation pi that can introduce input lag or less than perfect analog video - some games output in extremely weird refresh rate to run at 100% speed and many people are very particular about those.
The impact this video had is already clear looking at other comments and twitter replies. Many people now think you need to spend $500 when all you need is a DE10 Nano and a stick of RAM, turning people away from it. You also harped on the dos core because it couldn't run intensive 3D games then wanted a dreamcast core? This is embarrassing.
WTF?! The consoles are amazing! 100% accuracy is something an emulator will never reach. I've packed all my physical consoles. Wish there was done a bit more research. The ao468 is capabele of so much more. 🤦♂️
Sort of, they will eventually be able to get to something approaching 100% for the cart based systems, the problem has always been that the computational power to emulate all of the hardware is substantial. BSNES is the only SNES emulator that I know of that is trying, and that takes a massive amount of processing power and I don't think it's 100%. That being said, the power consumption for even trying is pretty stupid, you're better off just getting an FPGA based solution that can do it far more efficiently.
@@SmallSpoonBrigade my reaction was 2 years ago. 😉 Back then, the possibility of a PSX, Saturn, or even an N64 core wasn't even considered. I have to admit that modern systems will never achieve 100% accuracy with the current size FPGA chip. However, seeing the developments with Taki Udon, I can imagine him developing a console-based MiSTer with a much bigger FPGA, fully focused on retro gaming preservation. In that case, more modern systems would be a much better fit. On the other hand, developing those cores will take a massive amount of work. Unfortunately, we depend on open-source volunteers because we're not allowed to commercialize emulators thanks to the big N. Thanks for the response though. I love that people are still interested in MiSTer, and I still support the community. I recently stopped supporting on Patreon since some developers have stopped developing. But I can't wait to see what the future holds, especially since Taki Udon will come up with affordable alternatives to the DE10 Nano. Hopefully Metal Jesus can make a followup since a full package with USB board will only cost $160. Know that this board does exactly the same as those expensive Analogue consoles and he is also developing a Handheld MiSTer. 😉
Extremely cool device, almost hard to grasp. With the span of consoles it covers, it’s bound to have some troubles with how recently it’s been invented. But $455? I gotta get a PS5 first lol
@@dinierto “$250” That’s what I told myself when I bought a PS1 again at 26 years old. Now I’m 28 with like $600 worth of PS1 games with cases & manuals lol I should’ve emulated 🤷♂️
The only troubles it has is when you start wanting to play 3d pc games on it or you get a bad rom or rom library. I had a complete genesis library from archive and it was all pal roms and I’d didn’t realize it, they all ran terrible! I went back and forced the ntsc but because they were actual pal roms it didn’t matter. You want the “.gen” roms not the “.md”. Other then that there’s no issues and it’s true HARDWARE emulation so loading the rom is like putting the cart into a real nes or genesis etc. I use it on my crt and my oled with scanlines and it is perfect.
@@zagreatandini2345 PAL roms will run at PAL speed, that's how the original consoles were. They were 50 Hz instead of 60 so some devs just let them run at the different speed rather than bothering to convert them over and run the same speed 😂
I don't understand complaining about games not running well on hardware emulated 486 that never ran well on a real 486 PC. Duke Nukem 3D, Screamers, Descent 2 ... those all needed at least a Pentium or 5x86 to run decently. If anything, I'd say what you observed highlights just how accurate the 486 emulation is.
I wonder if the MiSTer could replicate a Pentium with 3dfx. If PSX and Saturn can run well which seems to be the case, there might be enough headroom for better PC performance. Descent 2 is a great game, I'd love to have it run well on MiSTer.
@@spotifyseascapessmoothjazz I dunno. PSX and Saturn are both RISC based, which I assume makes them take up less space on an FPGA. Also I think generating higher clock rates needed for pentium emulation is more difficult(although not impossible) since it only has a 50Mhz clock generator
@@timseguine2 There exist more powerful FPGA circuits than DE10-nano that's used for this, but they are more expensive. We might see more ambituous projects in the future if the price drops, but the bigger problem is the higher difficulty in mapping more advanced systems. Core creators use some pretty arcane methods already and I have no idea just what kind of person we'd need to map, say, Dreamcast
@@spotifyseascapessmoothjazz Unfortunately not gonna happen - the AO486 core as it is takes up something like 90% of the FPGA’s units, so it is pretty much running at the limit of the hardware as it sits.
The DE-10 Nano is a great fit for this project because of its cost - intel uses it as a loss-leader to get FPGA developers in their ecosystem as opposed to say Xilinx. There are more capable FPGA cores with more resource units, but they are an order of magnitude more expensive so yeah, they ain’t used for gaming like this.
It's totally worth the price. With the accuracy, amount of emulated systems and upgrade options for various I/O. Now compare it to all those mini-consoles that are mostly based on shitty android boards with shitty controllers and the price for every one of them. Nobody can tell me that those old clunky controllers are better than modern wireless gamepad. And if you want you can use any other PC controller that can be mapped including arcade sticks and racing wheel. Mister just kicked all the competition in the ass. It's worth the price just for great Amiga emulation alone.
Your expectations for the AO486 core are a little off. It has '486' in the name of the core for a reason. It's not replicating a Pentium processor. Specifically, it's implementing a 486SX processor.
I feel like 10 mins of research of this device on his part before making this video would have helped alleviate his confusion about that.
@@sunekoo It's a problem for many of his videos. He doesn't do an appropriate level of research, which then has him making comments that are very misleading.
bad floating point on the core, they said it might not be able to fit it.
@@kinggaldon maybe one day...
@@goldenretrogames Exactly. Having a big built in audience has stopped him trying anymore. It's a shame as his videos used to be really good. Now he's just worth a quick look before you search for a more indepth/accurate video.
The Mister is worth it's weight even if its just to play CPS2 games. The idea of having a 1:1 arcade perfect version of street fighter 2 super turbo at home... I love it.
That's the main reason I got it! 💪 The rest is a bonus. A bonus from the gaming gods
@@beansoup1088 X-men COTA !!
@@DestinyFomo right on! 💪
Exactly. Just the accurate cps2 arcade boards are worth the money.
Why so much hate for Destiny sheesh smh
All you actually need to dip your toes in this, is a de10nano, those are 150, to run everything you can get away with around 200, in many cases the complete kit is not necessary, and you can upgrade along the way.
Not quite, you need the DE10-Nano and an OTG hub (which can be cheap) and you really want the SDRAM or you can only play a few cores. But the point remains that you can get by with a fully functional system for around $250
@@dinierto Most cores are fully playable without the SDRAM upgrade. The main things that need SDRAM are NeoGeo and 32mb GBA games and a couple other things. You can 100% have a working MiSTer setup on a budget and build from there.
@@AngryGhost114 yes, it's true, you really only need the DE10-Nano and an OTG board. I always recommend the SDRAM though because many of the popular cores people will want to play require it, and it's only $50. But definitely important to be aware of what you can play with which hardware to make that decision
Theres only a few popular cores that can skip the SDRAM. Most will work with a cheaper 32 meg though.
@@dinierto So $200 less than is claimed in this video then?
The low performance on 3D games is the lack of a simulated FPU (floating point unit) on the 486 core. It runs like an Intel 486 SX would if it was clocked about approximately 90Mhz (which is a processor that never existed). Real Intel 486 SX processors capped out at 33Mhz. This shouldn't affect many games designed for maximum performance on 486 systems and most games designed to run on a at least a 486 SX system.
Issues start to crop up with some (mostly 3D) games that released after the Pentium was introduced (1993) and expected a performant FPU to be present. Non-intel "586" processors like the Cyrix 5x86 with slow FPUs had similar performance issues at the time.
Yeah, it’s basically pre-Duke3D specs. Like Lucas Art adventure games, Civilization, Sim City 2000, Railroad Tyccon etc. Wish he tried some of those.
Yep. sx 486 was slow as hell even for regular old Doom. Just not a good enough processor for those early 3d games. It seems to be running them fine for what it is emulating. A pentium 133 or 166 would be the logical next core.
@@lukeannett those won't fit. Current Ao486 is more emulation than FPGA, AFAIK
I would like to say that most (if not all) 2.5D games like Doom, Duke 3D or Hexen don't use FPU at all. So lack of the FPU unit is not an issue. The first major 3D game that required FPU was Quake and that game needs at least Pentium to run properly anyway.
Paar86 you still need a Pentium for most levels on Duke3D. I played it on a DX100 and some levels just ran like ass.
MiSTer is a off shoot of the MIST project .Which was mainly focused on FPGA implementation of Amiga and Atari ST .These are some of the best cores on MiSTer which weren't talked about unfortunately .I was disappointed MJR compared the MiSTer to a arm based Multi System when it truth it should be compared to a Analogue styled device
it's not as if the guy actually understands what he's talking about, or that his opinion is valued by anybody who does.
Your history lesson just gave me insight into why it is called MIST. Am I right then that MIST comes from MiniMig for Amiga and the ST from Atari ST? Or is there an actual acronym at play here?
@@NoSpamForYou yes and the MiSTer was a cheaper open source version
@@DeathBoy2098 TBH I do value MJR's opinion but when you compare the cores of MiSTer against the Analogue .The MiSTer gives you much greater bang for buck .RPI's are cheap but they come with many more compromises cycle accuracy is a big one
@@marymarshall8847 It does depend quite a bit on the core and the game. For instance, here at least is frame accurate CPS2, something that is a huge leap forward for the fighting game community:
ruclips.net/video/EblLG8geeQU/видео.html
"Why won't this 486 play pentium games?!?" - the review
😂 Yeah its kinda weird examples mjr chose. I guess a second Video would be nice. More accurate ;)
I swear to $DEITY Screamer ran like this on my old 486DX2@66. It wasn't until I got the Pentium 133 that I could really play the game :)
Glad mister is getting attention, but this presenter had a lot of catching up to provide a proper presentation.
Looked to me it only had issues with 3D games, and after all, 3Dfx made a fortune addressing slow 3D rendering on 386 and 486 machines (until ATI & nVidia clipped their wings)
Yeah he did the same thing with his review about the steam deck. "Why won't it play GOG games out of the box, why do I have to do these extra steps but not for games on steam." For a device named the Steam Deck😅
I would like to mention that setup of the MiSTer is not as difficult as it's portrayed here. It's actually as easy as Retropie (for a basic installation) and ultimately much easier if you throw in the tweaking, Metadata scraping, etc. that is generally involved in Retropie. There's a script called update_all that installs all the basic cores and sets up the directories for you. Basically write image to disk, run it once, setup controller, add update_all, add roms, play games.
@Ivan Zhao What he means is that it's simple to get to a retropie install stage. You download an image as with retropie, flash it to an sd card and then run a simple setup script that does everything with no user input. All you are left to do then is add roms. This is simple as they sit on a fat32 part of the sd card so you can do it over network or direct from your main PC/MAC. It really is quite easy.
I like to also mention that a RPI is cheaper, and just as good and is more than enough for most people.
@@zakanpeki5546 that's a great point that's perfectly valid. There's a lot of shaming and gatekeeping on both sides trying to make people feel bad about choosing one or the other but really people just need to look at the options and educate themselves. So long as you know the differences and advantages of each there's not a wrong choice. We all love playing retro games so let's have fun!
@@zakanpeki5546 It is not "Just as good" please don't speak shit about something that you haven't even used, the last part you are right about though... a rpi is usually more than enough for most.
@@zakanpeki5546 yeah RPi is definitely not "just as good". If you can't tell or don't care about the difference though, then RPi is for you.
Don't expect the mister to run anything from after 1995. The ao486 core is already pushing the FPGA to it's limits, and it doesn't even have a floating point unit (so it's really a 486sx and not a 486dx). Adding a Pentium core with Voodoo support, or a Dreamcast core is not going to fit on the FPGA. PS1 and Sega Saturn are the upper limits.
I think the mister is over rated and over priced. I'm sticking with groovymame in my cab.
@@namegoeshere69 It's getting better and better. It is rather expensive, but I'm happy with mine. There's even an experimental option to run the Sinden lightgun on it. I haven't gotten it to work well yet, but I was able to shoot a few ducks with it.
The N64 core works perfectly fine.
@@mortimore4030 the problem with pointing out the n64 core to 3 year old comments is the n64 core wasn't considered possible 3 years ago, yet alone in the state it is now.
You were just loading the Rambo "picture" file - the game is a separate file in that D64 (disk image)... I have a lot of interest in the MiSTer, but it's affording the hardware and the time to do it justice.
LMFAO 🤣🤣🤣
he needed to load the image, not the image!
lol no wonder he spent a year trying to get nascar to run
"What if they start adding support for PSX and Saturn?"
Yeah, those two cores are well into development already.
1:1 Saturn? Yes please.
I think just this week they released video of the Sony home screen with some homebrew running, so heck yes they are close!
@@billford171 when do you think the PS1 core is going to be able to play games normally? A year? A couple of years?
@@Jucelegario no idea, but those developers are insanely good at what they do. I wouldnt be suprised if they cranked that out 1st qtr of 2022.
@@billford171 lets hope so
This thing is an Analogue NT, Super NT, MegaSG, NeoGeo, all with flashcarts as well as just about arcade perfect CPS1 and CPS2. The 486 core is super early but the above and more are amazing and worth the $250 it would take to get you going. The IO board, custom Usb Hub, and fancy case are just extras really.
But it can’t read my original game modules
@@arminius504 Nobody forces you to do a thing, you can spend an insane amount of money to buy original consoles or analogue consoles in which you can put your original cartridges or you can buy a Mister and download every game for every consoles that can run on Mister for free, I chose the free option because all of my retro games and consoles got stolen by a junky, I'm not paying for the same consoles and games a second time.
@@arminius504 Technically it can if you know how to program.
You know those gameboy/snes/Genesis cartridge extractor for PC?
Yeah it can just extract those things and load it up in it's ram which is way faster than those cartridge.
@@dansmith5012 Having both also an option. Sorry to hear about the theft of your systems, that sucks.
@@arminius504 Add a little RFID sticker to every original game, then hook up a scanner to a small SBC like RPi with a database/xml list of all your games. Pass the game media over top of the scanner to automatically ID the game and have the RPI load the core/ROM in Mister. Not sure if anyone has that going on Mister, but someone was already working on remote front ends running on other systems for it.
The 486 performance seems to match my memory pretty well. I played a lot of Duke3D on a 486 and that's about what I remember it running at.
Playing some old sierra games on the 486/Amiga cores with the mt32-pi (Roland MT-32 emulator) is phenomenal. Giving it new life to some old school games!
If you care about accuracy, it's worth every penny. A good chunk of my original hardware is now either packed up or sold off. Digital and analog outputs on a little box is ridiculously nice, it's so easy to swap between my gaming monitor and PVM. And now with PS1 and even Saturn looking like real possibilities, the future of the MiSTer is looking pretty amazing.
But the price is steep. We're talking 600 Dollars for the bare minimum, for the board and a 128MB expansion board. Although the price is reasonable in comparison to the original hardware this can replace.
It really isn't worth every penny, though. It would've been if it were to come out 10+ years ago, when most PC+Linux emulation was worried more about getting games to run at all than accuracy, but most emulators at this point already do incredibly well on PC, to the point where it's little, if any, different than playing on the original console, even on a crappy computer. In reality, it's a glamorized emulation box that does less than a PC does, sometimes negligibly better, with fewer options, at a high price point. Unless you're just someone who likes tinkering with your system more than using it to game, it's just not worth it.
@@Sin_Alder so many languages and you decided to speak truth
@@tarstarkusz what? That's not even remotely true. You can get a complete setup with IO, USB, and SDRAM for as low as $450. While steep, it's not as ridiculous as you're talking.
@@dinierto I'm going by the prices I found the day I posted that. Can you tell me where you can get it for that price?
Hi Jason, I love your videos, however, I think you are fundamentally missing the technical details of what an FPGA is. FPGAs are used in every vertical modern tech industry, because it also you to build an implementation, in hardware (via the programmable gate arrays), a chip. The DE-10 is a development board meant for aviation, medical, automotive and industrial applications. The typical use would be to design your chip, take that design and have the chip manufactured. Think of it as a flexible platform to enable engineers to rapidly produce designs that can be shipped to a chip manufacturer. The MiSTeR project works so well because the SOC (with ARM cores) is able to run Linux and that allows for flexible loading of "cores" to the FPGA. What you are experiencing via the project is not emulation, it's a re-implementation of circuitry from the original hardware. The Arcade cores are reverse engineered via schematics and taking probes to boards. Some of the cores do have bugs, however, the accuracy exists because it's a modern representation of the physical components. That is a massive distinction between emulators and using an FPGA core. The easiest way to think about it is like this: the NES core will be more accurate than an emulator, because it's an actual NES - the chips and circuitry are just implemented via flexible platform that allows you to load and unload those circuits. For 3D acceleration hardware to exist, that hardware needs to be implemented as an extension to the core, or a separate implementation of the old 3dFX hardware (I'm suspecting there's not enough room on the DE-10 to do that). Also, many, many people use this strictly as an console implementation and not just arcade core loading. It's worth doing some research on this, not only because you have such a great reach with your subscribers, but because it can hurt of diminish the work of the many developers who are performing the act of preservation (MiSTeR is almost like the hardware equivalent of something like MAME). Keep up the good work and I hope this information helps you.
While you're correct with everything, MJR has never really been about the technical details. This isn't the channel for that. He comes from a more enduser/fan perspective. If Jesus put your above info in a video I would have noped out of the video or just fell asleep and I'm sure others would have too. He didn't "miss" your info, it's just not his usual thing. If you want to know more about MiSTer's technical explanations, there's other channels for that.
modern vintage gamer is a good channel for homebrew stuff I think.
@@jasperfredrickson4420 it's not because he doesn't want to bog down his channel with technical details.. he clearly doesn't understand the FPGA technology. it's pretty obvious.
MJR's real name is Jason? Interdasting
I remember running both Duke Nukem 3D and Screamer on an actual 486 and yeah, that's exactly what they look like. Looks like the MISTer is emulating a 486 pretty much perfectly to me.
I had 486 DX2 50 MHz. Duke was basically unplayable on it because there were many slowdows hindering your ability to aim. Screamer wasn't really smooth but it was playable (at least in 320x200/240 mode).
Yeah 3D games needed to run on Pentium-class systems.
The biggest advantage of a CRT is response time!! The whole game doesn't blur the moment things start moving quickly, like they do on the VAST majority of flatscreens.
had the mister for a couple years, loved it so much and put my super nt, mega sg, and core grafx 2 with super sd system 3 on ebay in the last few weeks. Worth every penney
I'm thinking about doing the same thing
@@parisgist it was a hard decision, that stuff meant alot to me. The mister is that good
I built one. I have an extensive console and game library. My problem is that I'm never home because I'm a trucker. The MiSTer allows me to take most of my retro library on the go for month on end. Even though my build has the analog I/O board, I've never hooked it up to my CRT; I use that board exclusively for stack completion within the case, heatsink fan, and the three hardware I/O buttons. When I'm home, the real consoles are already hooked up on switchers, so I never felt the point.
Usually love your vids but this one is somewhat of a miss. The MISt is all the analogue consoles in one and much much more. Sure you can't insert carts or cd's but this is by far the best solution for all retro platforms!!
I mean, he compares it to the mini systems... like, lmao...
Yes, although there are solutions for converting most of those formats if you know what you're doing. I personally don't regret buying one, it's fantastic not having to mod every one of my consoles to output decent video quality onto my LCD or worry about sourcing a proper CRT. I have a feeling that these will be around for many years to come and will probably be compatible with some future FPGA chips with more power.
Got mine a few months ago; Never touching emulation again; Such a huge difference, especially if you use a controller with low latency.
What's the difference between using an emulator on pc?
@@GodleyX the biggest selling point to this is a lot tighter latency. Getting as close to zero latency as possible is crucial for older games that relied on twitch reaction time.
Another thing is the video quality. Being able to use an old CRT allows the games to be played using the video technology the developers would've been expecting to further tighten the timing.
@@GodleyX it costs money
I’ve had one for a year and a half. I use it with a Sony Trinitron CRT Tv and 2 wired 8bitdo controllers. It’s like having 20 Analogue consoles in one, only Mister gets updates on a weekly basis. There’s no reason not to own one if you’re into retro gaming.
Makes sense for some, who just want to play the games. I prefer jailbroken Analogue consoles, authentic controllers, and original carts. They are pricey but it's worth it to me, I value the plug and play nature of Analogue products and their sleek designs.
@@joshbarnes9267 Then get a blisster board and play with original controllers. Still no carts though.
Unless you already own all the classic consoles
Blister cores are forked and a bit of a pain to keep updated. I would just deal with the whopping 1ms USB lag through whatever USB converter, it isn’t noticible outside of light guns and you can use SNAC for those.
@@FoxbatStargazer why a pain to update? The update script does it automatically.
I did not think this would be worth the cost for the whole kit in the nice MISTer Addons aluminum case at first. I was wrong. This is the best retro gaming purchase I have made. It not only supports all the console and handhelds I wanted to play, but it has really made me fall in love with the Atari ST and Amiga. Two computers I could never afford as a kid.
Also, it's worth every penny compared to buying each individual emulator separately. Sure it's not 100%, but very close and it's an all in one with nearly latency free analog and digital video out. ;)
The RetroCastle kit also seems pretty nice and it's very compact. Sure, you end up with just 4 USB ports instead of 7, but I rarely ever use more than 3. But I'm not gonna lie, that MiSTerAddons case also looks absolutely stunning.
This is hands down the best console I've ever bought. It replaced all my old consoles. I still have them... But i use this for convience.
I have the original MiST (~$250) that the MiSTer is based on. The original MiST was intended to just accurately reproduce the Amiga (500/1000) and Atari ST 16-bit computers (Mi = Amiga/ST = ST) and can support higher end 680x0 CPUs, but the MiSTer was expanded with a faster FPGA and other add-ons.
Love the channel, but dude you pretty showed the worst mister has to offer. The 486 core is still relatively new and most people I’ve seen use it for console emulation which is amazing. And they are already developing ps1 and Saturn. You can see early tests online now.
Who you think you are? Renaker?
One other important peice to note are the cores for the portable systems; Gameboy/Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance, Lynx, Game ear, etc... Other than consolizing an actual handheld unit MiSTER is currently the most accurate and least laggy way to play any of these systems on a monitor and/or television.
From my memories of trying to run those 3d games on a 486 DX/2 66mhz: Looks about right, I'd say. My old machine really struggled with those 3D titles, with only a really small number of exceptions…
The ao486 core for MiSTer is close to the performance of a 486 DX33 so it is going to struggle with some of the more demanding MS-DOS games.
I also had the DX2 66mhz. Performance were better than the Mister core. I mean, I never had problems running Descent or Doom. I remember having worked a lot on NASCAR to make it playable. The best I got was around 17-20 fps... all low details and probably 320x200 😂
MiSTER is worth it if you want:
Bit perfect reproduction
Are worried about input lag caused by hardware such as your PC/USB
Want to output to a PVM or CRT via an analog signal that matches original hardware
Don't already own retro hardware with all the games you want to play
For most people, a Pi is more than enough. This is for enthusiasts who want to get as close to original hardware as possible without having to invest in original hardware.
Even if you paid $400 (you can buy just the parts you need and I got away with $300) you would be saving money IF you have to invest in retro hardware and want to play them on a modern TV.
Just estimating:
NES - $50. If you want RGB output for OSSC, add $200 unless you can solder it yourself
SNES - $100
Genesis - $70
SegaCD - $130
OSSC - $150
Base for those 4 systems is about $500.
Oh, and THEN you get to buy games for these retro systems where the prices have gone absolutely stupid.
So yeah, if you don't have any retro hardware and want all the capabilities I listed at the top, then the MiSTER is worth it.
If all you want is the least expensive emulation option with HDMI output, go with the Pi for a lot less money.
I own all that stuff (and too much more), and it's still worth it.
@@ionmyke so do I lol.
I like taking MiSTER with on vacations and such and also move it around the house.
Not easy or fun to move the OSSC and whatever systems I want to play.
I don't have a CRT or PVM. If I tried that, I'd probably be divorced.
That's assuming those purchased consoles are in good working order. Most old consoles are in need of restoration work.
In general yes, but keep in mind that with the Mister you do also have to source the ROMs, and the hardware to do that isn't necessarily always the easiest to obtain. I'm lucky enough to be able to dump most of the common systems from Atari 2600 up until the N64 as well as some of the disc based systems.
@@ionmyke I agree, hooking up those systems to modern TVs is a pain and the results are pretty much always lacking.
I just ordered mine (just the DE-10 board) literally 2 hours ago.
Good decision. Congrats
Just got Analog I/O board and connected it to my 30 year old Amiga monitor and it's simply stunning!
My Mister is modded in a NES case i had left since my Nintoaster. love the Mister, the ability to run on hdmi and scart is awesome.
Use it to play old consoles, specifically Genesis, SMS, Sega CD, Turbografx, etc. Love it. Maybe it is the extremely low lag, or the look on screen, but I can always advance much further in the game through MiSTer than I ever could through emulation, pi, or even the collections on modern consoles. Hands down best system I have ever owned.
Yep. i think the low lag is burned into the Brain.
I can advance much further in Contra 3 on real Hardware or the Mister than on Emulation
Note: Sega MegaCD core has 2x 68000 chips plus others. The real hardware is bulky and mk1 prone to breakdown, so this is the boon of FPGA. I've got a MegaSD and all the SegaCD games on my SD card... I use the JVC WonderMega bios for a different jingle. BTW, mega everdrive Pro has MegaCD on its FPGA now. When you add up all the prices of the other FPGA solutions out there, MiSTer is a compelling all in one solution. To the person saying don't buy the Analogue consoles.... I don't agree, they are really cool, Kevtris cores are exceptional. Great if you have original games. $190 a piece for SNES & SMD support. I hope they make a Neo Geo again.... however MiSTer is the best value solution for this . If all the above is too costly then software emulation is the way to go. People are spoiled for choice these days, really.
@@flogjam Sega CD looks so good on MiSTer. As for Analogue, I do love my MegaSG but find I play MiSTer much more, but only out of convenience. I will, if they open up to regular people again, purchase an Analogue Pocket. Getting FPGA in handheld will be spectacular.
@@billford171 Analogue is the luxury version of FPGA, with a rockstar programmer/engineer on the payroll. MiSter is for the people. You are paying for that. I will be getting a MiSTer at some point. I have Miss-FPGA (MIST) which is close enough . Cyclone 3 vs 5 though.
@@flogjam I don't get why people say the Mega / Sega CD Model 2 is "more reliable", yes it has a flap up lid for the disc drive but it has otherwise poorer build quality and likes to blow fuses.
The real Jewel in the MiSTer's crown it its Amiga core. It really is superb. I have a HD workbench install and a WHDLoad games library. The accuracy is astounding.
I need to spend more time with the Amiga games. Didn't own one as a kid, so I don't have a ton of experience.
@@MetalJesusRocks when you get around to trying the Amiga core (minimig) be sure to follow this guide for the easiest set up with complete game library. It’s an absolute treasure trove!!! ruclips.net/video/SfrQXeBb49Y/видео.html
Totally agree man. The clue is in the name. A(Mi)ga ST . WHDload is great for launching games that would've been on multiple floppies 💾. An Amiga 1200 with a ram board is about the same cost as a MiSTer . The 8bitsforever boards are around €150 but require an Amiga case/keyboard. Runs all the main cores and does not require a DE10 nano.
The Minimig core alone is worth the price.
Omg, you didn't even scratched the heart of the cores, Amiga support, GB,GBA dual player support, the auto update script for cores...
Yes and as of a couple weeks ago, there was preliminary support available for the Sinden Light gun. Not to mention that there's been a great deal of progress in general made since this video was uploaded.
Would love to see a follow-up since this was 3 years ago.
Low latency is a huge reason to use FPGA for console emulation. Another factor driving usage is 8 and 16 bit computer support where one can explore other systems like Acorn or Plus 4 and not have to deal with finding expensive hardware off eBay, PAL v NTSC displays, power differences, technical issues due to age like keyboard membranes, etc etc.
A lot of his points are misleading I have a MISTer and absolutely love it so please don’t take his word as gospel do your homework .. you definitely won’t be disappointed if you buy a MISTer
I would say I am a fan of the MiSTer. ;-) For the DOS side, you just have to know the limits and you can have a great time. 486 66SX not DX or below and everything should feel like it did in the early 90's. I did include game examples that pushed the limits for the purpose of the Devs having something easy to test against, if development picks back up on the AO486 core.
Mister is the future of preserving these games. As somebody that’s plays pretty hardcore I can vouch that mister is a great investment. Better to get into sooner than later, get yourself acquainted. It’s a simulation experience more than emulation experience.
@hjf4a2 A company? It's an open-source community project where hardware is replicated in either Verilog or VHDL which can be reasonably easily ported to other FPGA platforms. You're completely misinformed on what this box is.
@hjf4a2 you are boring cpt obvious. And you dont get it. 😂
@hjf4a2 what company would that be? have you seen the size of the thing you're comparing to a full blown PC? it's smaller than half your GPU upgrade.
I got the MiSTer mainly for consoles, specifically for SNES. I still have muscle memory from growing up playing tons of Super Nintendo and with the inherent lag in software emulation, my muscle memory gets tripped up a lot. As much as I like the SNES Classic or Retroarch, I wasn't having that much fun, I thought I was getting bad at the games. Then I got the MiSTer mainly for the low latency and it's a game changer. Muscle memory kicked in and I went through Super Mario World, Donkey Kong Country 1-3 without missing a beat. It felt exactly as I remembered from back in the day. Can't wait for the PS1 and Saturn cores btw.
Is it really that big a difference? I’ve never noticed, but I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, that’s why I’m asking. I’ve had tons of fun with emus.
@@DisgruntledPigumon for me it was noticable. I guess I'm more sensitive to input latency, at least for the games I played a lot growing up. For example, when I got the SNES classic, I was excited to replay Donkey Kong Country. There was one level on the ice world that kept giving me troubles (might've been the first one, there was a part with small platforms and tons of flying birds coming at you during a raging blizzard. There's also the barrel section). I kept dying over and over, it was very frustrating. I thought I was bad at the game or getting old (I'm only 36 though lol!). Never got past that level and didn't replay it until a few years later on the MiSTer. I breezed through the game without missing a beat, that hard level, first try. I promptly 100% the DKC trilogy back to back and it was great! It just FELT right. It's hard to explain. So for me, I can notice the difference. :)
@@DisgruntledPigumon it's hard to consciously tell, but muscle memory knows. The same happened to me.
@@DisgruntledPigumon I recently played through Mega Man 2 on the Legacy Collection and played through it on the MiSTer immediately afterward. Huge difference. There are maneuvers I can pull off flawlessly on an FPGA that I don't dare try on subpar emulation.
Now - modern emulators have a lot of options for reducing input lag. I honestly can't tell the difference between my MiSTer and bsnes with the lag reduction option set to 1. But if I'm playing one of the retail collections, they're playable, but it feels sluggish and I have to play a lot more conservatively than I want to, which isn't nearly as fun. I beat all the Mega Man X games without upgrades back when I had a CRT. If X's jump feels even a little sluggish it throws me off.
I think someone unfamiliar with these games would be just fine with most emulators because I think what I've been able to do with these games would be possible for someone who trained their muscle memory according to the emulator's timing vs. the original hardware, but I know these games well enough that most emulators will never feel right.
@@DisgruntledPigumon On some games it's a lot more noticeable than with others. If you just want an example of how lag can make a hard level become nearly impossible to tackle, check 1991 Battletoads Clinger-Winger. Any mistakes, either yours or lag-induced, are cumulative on this level.
But it's also worth pointing out that just using a MiSTer doesn't mean you get no lag, it only gives you no lag when using a CRT either with an Analog Board or with a decent external video DAC. Playing through HDMI on default settings likely adds 1 or 2 frames worth of lag but you can change settings to fix that... won't work with some very cheap/crappy TVs, but should work with most/all decent TVs and any computer monitor that's not complete garbage.
Video lag is not the only kind of lag... controller lag is also something you should be mindful of on games where any lag can trip you up. Using a bluetooth controller is probably the single worst thing you can do in this regard. If you're using wireless, at least get a 2.4GHz dongle instead of bluetooth. I would recommend you either get a low-lag wired USB controller or use a SNAC adapter to play with original controllers on more "hardcore" games.
The NES had a bunch of games where the lag of an emulator on an underpowered machine or even on the MiSTer, using a crappy HDMI TV and a Bluetooth controller, can make your gaming session absolutely miserable. Punch Out, Battletoads, Tetris, SMB2J, Mega Man... It doesn't mean you can't play those games on a RetroPie or something like that, just that you won't be able to perform as well, you'll have to "play it safe" and it's going to be a lot harder than the game was on real hardware.
For controllers, search for "rpubs misteraddons inputlatency", for video DACs, search "kuro mister fpga dac"... There are many settings you can play with to improve latency on the MiSTer, the two main ones are vsync_adjust if you want to play over HDMI and fast polling if you're using USB instead of SNAC.
It’s my favorite toy in a long time. Really enjoy the tinker aspect of it and am building an arcade cabinet to house it along with a consumer crt with s-video connected to it via a vga converter. Amazing results. Love that it’s an evolving project and new arcade cores are coming out monthly. Keeps it exciting.
Hands down, this is the absolute best retro investment you can make right now.
🤣
Exactly
I would say no when you're spending $250-350. Much cheaper Raspberry Pi and I want to mention new-old stock Windows 10 ThinkCentre PC. Those have DisplayPort and VGA out and run PS1 at full speed and DOSBox of course. Zero effort to setup, I mean, it's a PC. I don't notice 1 frame of input lag. $15 used ATI card for 15k / 240p, now that takes setup.
@@soccerstar99 you notice no lag means nothing. Most people dont notice the input lag. If you had a MiSTer you would know its superior to emulation and much more efficient running at 7w. I dont want an old PC and its much more complicated than setting up a MiSTer.
@@ninetendopesaitama2107 Thank you, I like MiSTER except the cost and N64 cutoff. I want to see a test suite comparing MiSTer to software emulation. SNES core ported byuu/Near's C++ code so I doubt more accurate. PC easy with OS pre-installed but is a power hog.
One thing to note about the SNES and NES cores is that you can play them at the native refresh rate over HDMI (if you have a display that supports 60.09 Hz, which most PC monitors should), which you cannot do with Analogue devices. With the Analogue Nt mini and Super Nt, there's a tradeoff between using a framebuffer and getting tearing or dropped frames, or running the games slightly slower than native speed. The latter option is not perceivably different when playing, but MiSTer is definitely better for speedrunners and the like, as you can save several seconds over the course of an hourlong run without any visual issues.
Very interesting. IIRC the MiSTer doesn't do that by default, you have to change MiSTer.ini and change vsync_adjust to 1 or 2. I guess it was left on zero to avoid compatibility issues with some really crappy cheap HDMI TVs and to avoid screen blanking for resyncing after resolution and timing changes. Maybe the SuperNT also has an option somewhere to use native framerate?
When it comes to the consoles, you're right that there is nothing special about playing the regular suspects over HDMI. The real value is in the rgb/component analog output for each console, which is VERY expensive otherwise.
that's not really true. vsync_adjust=2 is only 4 lines of latency if the display supports it. No other emulation method is getting nearly that close.
Man, seeing Stunts run brought back all sorts of memories building insane tracks and racing them with my best friend at his house when I was 12!
I own a mister and really love it. I mainly use it for console cores as the latency and accuracy is unmatched in my opinion even the Nintendo online service has too much input lag to properly enjoy the games, therefore it provides me with everything I could wish for
This feels like the kind of work my kids do when they're made to do something they don't really want to do, l
ike taking the bins out. Clearly MJR's heart was not in this one.
Looks interesting! Nice to see those game captures and short movie clips, it brings back heartwarming memories!
It ran Phantasmagoria (PC) really well. I was pleasantly surprised!
My childhood was all 16 and 32 bit consoles, and have been playing on emulators recently.I went back to actual hardware and was blown away. Even the fastest software emulators can’t replicate the original experience. To have something like this exist and emulate all of those machines at that price point is worth it imo
I agree, certain games really shine on the original hardware clock. Emulators are fun, but I can tell the difference.
I'm shocked MJR didn't have one of these years ago.
Seeing Montezuma's Revenge on screen for a few seconds brings me back my childhood...awesome video as always.
I really love that game as well. Played it a ton on my Atari 2600 and C64
You had a lot of diarrhea as a kid?
Every time I eat Taco Bell 😉
I keep saying that I'll buy when Mortal Kombat 2 gets a core. But all the old PC cores make it worth it as well
Taki Udon is currently working on cloning the DE10 nano hardware as well as the ram modules for a fraction of the price Terasic currently sells them for
Not enough hype. Best investment in retro tech i ve ever made. Worth every cent. :)
The title is misleading. You can start with the de10 nano + 128 sdram + heatsink +usb hub =240€.
You dont need the i/o board if you are just using hdmi TVs /monitors.
This is 100% correct.
Yeah people need to spread this around more
If you're a student, Terasic has a 15% discount on the DE-10 Nano. It's a great board and useful on it's own.
I have the MiSt, which is great for the computers and consoles I'm interested in. It's half the price and is plug and play. I love it.
Screamer always was a slideshow on the 486! I remember that well. Great video Metal Jesus ! thanks for posting
I had a 486 dx2 back in the day and those games ran just as you show'em here. For better framerates I needed to disable sound or lower graphic options. If MiSTER has a 486 core and not DosBOX, it's probably doing its job just fine and not a performance or emulation problem.
Screamer is a game that actually is a game that is in the beginning of the p4 era needing a 1.0GHz P4 to run at acceptable framerates in software mode... so a 486 @~90MHz won't cut it :P
Had one for a couple of years, play it on Sony PVM, nothing comes close.
I think a huge appeal not mentioned here is the support for the Amiga. AFAIK, Amiga emulation has never been great due to the timings of all the custom chips. That’s where a processor that thinks it’s all these chips comes into its own.
In terms of arcade emulation, my understanding is that the MAME project is progressing at a good pace, and many issues have been fixed in newer versions of the application and ROMs themselves. But for the most accurate performance, you’d need a beefy PC.
I think you undersold the console element here. Perfect replication of consoles is just as valuable as the arcade stuff. To be honest arcade stuff is still better served by MAME given the vast support it has over Mister right now. But for console there is nothing that competes with Mister.
I agree. I don't think he gave the attention deserved
I thought long and hard about getting one. But it is the price that just kills it for me. I recently resurrected up an older computer, installed RetroArch and a bunch of other stuff on it, and connected it on my wife and I's bedroom HDTV and it has worked out great, and I didn't spend much at all to do that. It plays all the stuff that I would want out of a Mister and more. The latency is great too with this method. Not to mention if I'm really desperate for authentic gameplay I still have my old NES, Genesis, and SNES with flash carts in them connected to an old CRT.
It’s worth it , and I bought it when it was for $350
Ever since returning in January, this has been the most common question I've gotten: "Zophar: What do you think of the MiSTer?" Well, I'm gonna find out as I just bought one today. Thanks for the review MetalJesus - very helpful!! :)
@MetalJesusRocks would this be the right choice for the heart of a custom Arcade Cabinet nowadays? Or should I stick with a raspberry pi setup?
No. Get a MiSTer for your arcade.
Mister is much better than emulation on a pi
if you are a big fan of fighting games no body beats mister it offers no lag game play no OS to fuck up the game play but you still need a pie to play the other stuff it cant play. asking MetalJesusRocks about this is pointless the guy has no clue what the hell he is talking about
Look at the arcade selection first (also keep in mind that the NeoGeo is listed as a “console”) and decide if it has enough arcade games for you. It does less games than mame but the games it does do will be (usually) more accurate and have 0 lag.
Pi is just standard emulation, so software based emulation.. FPGA is hardware emulation, quicker so unlikely to get software lag and input lag. FPGA is the nearest thing to real hardware when it comes to any sort of emulation.
This is by far the worst MiSTer review out there.
$450? No, $170 for a de10-nano, $15 or a 32MB SDRAM module, a bit more for 128MB if you care about NeoGeo or CPS2.
Setup is difficult? Run an installer and copy over the update_all script.
Most people use it for arcade? No, people use it for the systems they are nostalgic for. That might be arcade but it also could be Amiga, Atari ST or consoles.
Comparing it to one of the mini systems? This is where you miss the point the most! Cycle accurate reaction of nearly every system up to the mid 90s or a single system emulated on an ARM CPU. Mini consoles are a bit of a joke, just buy a Raspberry Pi.
C64 is defaulted to PAL? Yes C64 had way more support in PAL regions than NTSC regions, this is not a problem with the system, you go to the menu and select NTSC.
This is the biggest hidden gem of your RUclips carer and you made a mess of the review.
If you are a retrogamer just buy one. It is the best investment you can make.
I love my mister and have had it for about a year and a half. The console cores are spectacular. They have a very easy to use cheat system that is very convenient. Don’t overlook that feature. Nes and other cores have save states. Snes runs at a higher resolution too. Well worth the money and better than the competition in my opinion.
16:35 "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
The "tall and skinny monitor" that was in arcade cabinets were just sideways CRTs, that's why it default displays sideways if your TV isn't on its side. There was actually an option to play Gunbird 2 I think it was on Sega Dreamcast back in the day that way, I used to do it to have a bigger image.
👍 exactly, anyone with any knowledge of history in videogames knows the Yoko/Tate is the orientation of the CRT and its relative rotation of image displayed.
Japan videogaming phrasing :Tate height (90deg) and Yoko Width (standard position).
Sega Saturn shooters are another prime example of the display in Tate mode. Some of the most early arcade games inc. Scramble use that Tate type display.
However, you can get CRT outputs from Pi - with add on av out options - for emulation of retro on a CRT in RGB its not purely a mister only thing...
Well done video. I've had my MiSTer since 2019 and have no regrets. Its definitely worth the money.
Thanks! This was a fun video to make 👍
While 100% accuracy is possible, it's also not guaranteed. It all depends on how well cores are coded but that's also dependent on how well documented original hardware is or how far core developers are willing to go to research original hardware. A lot of the cores are based on the exact same documentation available to create emulators.
while this is true, software emulation isn't going to get cycle acurateat reasonable performance levels any time soon. The developer working on implementing the ps1 core also made a cycle accurate ps1 emulator and it would take an about 9ghz cpu to get it to run at full speed, but the mister should handle it fine, it takes a lot less silicon to get that kind of thing working on fpga
Channeling my inner Joe Redifer....TATE MODE!!!!
Joe is the Man. 😎
That was what instantly sprung to mind for me too when he said Ta-Tay. Joe is gonna come knocking.
came here for this comment. tah-tay! 😆
It’s my main work house for systems-This is great for someone returning to Retro Gaming, you have access to most games and systems and makes it easy to play most.
Love the few screenshots of Phantasmagoria. It was great and disturbing for it's time :)
Its time.
@@DisgruntledPigumon well you're quite pathetic lol
I have a MiSTer hooked up to the TV in my living room and--next to a Switch--it's the only piece of gaming hardware I have up there. All of the various mini consoles can stay in their boxes, it does them all. So I'm glad that it does all of the 8 and 16-bit consoles so very well.
PS1 support is coming, the core already plays some homebrew games.
I assembled mine piece by piece. First got the DE10 with just the RAM &Clock module and the I/O board, later I bought an USB-expander (because I put all of my games on a HDD) and a nice case.
Interesting that you say you don't envision the MiSTer's primary purpose as being for console games. To me, that was the whole point. Get all of these systems in one tiny unit so there aren't all these devices taking up space under the tv and cables going everywhere. The arcade cores are just the cherry on top, IMO (AvP, OMG).
It's pretty cool. Once these games and systems become too expensive and too rare and hard to come by, these sorts of devices will be a great option for preservation and playability into the future.
Been looking at building a custom arcade cab, mostly for CPS2/3 stuff, and this is likely the best option. Don't know much about modding other than the usual tutorial/cut/paste stuff, so good to hear getting set up is manageable for someone like me. Thanks for the input, and rock on MJR!
don't forget to play neogeo as well runs amazing i couldn't believe it, i have an mvs-1b board and supergun setup i couldn't tell them apart at gunpoint lol
If youre only going to run arcade games on your cab I would suggest a PC based groovymame setup instead of this. That is assuming you're going be using an 15khz arcade CRT monitor, which you should be,it looks the best.
The C64 joystick port thing is because Commodore said port 1 was the standard, but the issue was that joystick port 1 would register key presses, so if the game utilised the keyboard, you'd use port 2, and at some point(I think 87 or so) it pretty much become standard for all games to use port 2 for player 1.
MegaSG (Jailbroken, giving 100% compatibility, 5 cores) + SuperNT (Jailbroken, giving 90-something-% compatibility, 1 core) = $480 for six consoles.
MiSTer (DE10 Nano, 128MB RAM, OTG USB Hub, All cores above plus ### more, with more being added all the time) = $237. You'd spend most of $237 on just an FXPAK Pro.
MiSTer isn't expensive. Clone consoles and ROM carts are.
It's intended for the folks that really care about these things. And, I personally bought one and I'm glad that I did. Even just using an emulator on a PC gets expensive over time due to the electricity involved alone.
I guess the RMC crowd has already been here and suggested the MiSTer Multisystem, a consolised addon board/case for the FPGA Dev board, it looks so cool!
Best investment you can make if you have anything to do with retro!!!!!!!!
Would love to see an updated mister vid! Thinking about jumping in sometime in the next year.
Somebody needs to make new CRTs, somebody needs to convince Sony this needs to happen.
Costs would be in the thousands because of the scale of the market. Remember they could sell CRT's for $300 because there were hundreds of millions of worldwide customers. Making a new fabrication plant would be expensive, so each customer would have to share that cost.
I would love to have seen where CRT tech might have headed, if the market hadn't ended. I think we may have seen very slim CRTs, with modern inputs, as well as classic inputs.
A much smaller footprint, lighter in weight, and dead-flat screens. Included Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Ethernet, etc...
@@mrkirk4944 Hitachi was working on something called SED. It was basically an array of micro electron guns, each pixel triad had it's own. Unfortunately it lost out to LCD.
I've had my first one setup in a MiSTer Addons PCB case for a couple of years. When the aluminum cases came out I bought a fully assemble unit with aluminum case, and extra aluminum case and the newer boards to update my older setup. I've loved the project since I first got one and it get better by the week. It's VERY close to playing on original hardware. I would be lying if I said I don't wish it had save and cheat features like the highest end EverDrive carts. The MiSTer is expensive as a full setup with 128MB RAM but they are worth every penny.
I REALLY like the "update all" script. I find a new Arcade game almost ever time I run the script and let it update.
Glad to see you jump in. The model you have in the video is as good as it gets thus far. Maybe, just maybe there will be machined aluminum cases for the MiSTer. If they are ever available fully machined and anodized I'll buy a couple for sure.
I got mine a few months ago, and all i can say is it's absolutely worth the buy in price when you factor in all the systems available on it.
Regarding the 486 core, it's worth remembering that the core has the potential to be further enhanced in the future. Currently it behaves something like at 50 MHz 486SX. Hopefully one day it will be more like a 100 MHz 486DX
Noooo, don't show Comix Zone, I'm having 'Nam like flashbacks. Great video my dude.
That's a hard game, it got a bit easier when I realized that it's part fighting game and part puzzle game. You have to take the right path through the game if you want to make that next stage and you have to be good enough at fighting not to run out of resources before you finish.
I've been wanting one of these since it jumped on the scene. Definitely will get asap. Great vid mate!
Too bad Screamer didn't work properly it was one of the best racers I played back then, I had Nascar as well I remember it was a 4 floppy disks. Nice device and great video thank you.
Yeah, Screamer is a total hidden gem these days...
@@MetalJesusRocks That needs about a 1GHz Pentium4 to run a acceptable framerates in software mode, so it looks about right getting maybe a frame per second on a 486SX 90MHz...
The arcade support, as I understand, is also because there is some addons that let you hook up your MiSTer to some if not most classic arcade cabinets, and may let you replace a broken game with the same game or a multi game setup, given how Japanese astro city cabinets and such exist.
Of course, this is more expensive as those addons to mister are VERY specialized but also understandable as you'd want something like it instead of emulation pi that can introduce input lag or less than perfect analog video - some games output in extremely weird refresh rate to run at 100% speed and many people are very particular about those.
LOL, your title... have the same problem here.
Still need to look at this piece of hardware. 😅
So some more research, because this video is trash (like most of his reviews)
TOOK YOU LONG ENOUGH!!!!!
Haha glad you checked it out!!
The impact this video had is already clear looking at other comments and twitter replies.
Many people now think you need to spend $500 when all you need is a DE10 Nano and a stick of RAM, turning people away from it.
You also harped on the dos core because it couldn't run intensive 3D games then wanted a dreamcast core?
This is embarrassing.
You sold me on it. As soon as i have $500 laying around I'm getting one
WTF?! The consoles are amazing! 100% accuracy is something an emulator will never reach. I've packed all my physical consoles. Wish there was done a bit more research. The ao468 is capabele of so much more. 🤦♂️
@@kz.irudimen I agree, think he had done better if he invited someone from the community to explain things a bit. 🤐
Sort of, they will eventually be able to get to something approaching 100% for the cart based systems, the problem has always been that the computational power to emulate all of the hardware is substantial. BSNES is the only SNES emulator that I know of that is trying, and that takes a massive amount of processing power and I don't think it's 100%.
That being said, the power consumption for even trying is pretty stupid, you're better off just getting an FPGA based solution that can do it far more efficiently.
@@SmallSpoonBrigade my reaction was 2 years ago. 😉 Back then, the possibility of a PSX, Saturn, or even an N64 core wasn't even considered. I have to admit that modern systems will never achieve 100% accuracy with the current size FPGA chip. However, seeing the developments with Taki Udon, I can imagine him developing a console-based MiSTer with a much bigger FPGA, fully focused on retro gaming preservation. In that case, more modern systems would be a much better fit. On the other hand, developing those cores will take a massive amount of work. Unfortunately, we depend on open-source volunteers because we're not allowed to commercialize emulators thanks to the big N.
Thanks for the response though. I love that people are still interested in MiSTer, and I still support the community. I recently stopped supporting on Patreon since some developers have stopped developing. But I can't wait to see what the future holds, especially since Taki Udon will come up with affordable alternatives to the DE10 Nano. Hopefully Metal Jesus can make a followup since a full package with USB board will only cost $160. Know that this board does exactly the same as those expensive Analogue consoles and he is also developing a Handheld MiSTer. 😉
Seeing QEMM in the menu took me back some years!
I know, right? Something you don't need to think about these days (thankfully)
Extremely cool device, almost hard to grasp. With the span of consoles it covers, it’s bound to have some troubles with how recently it’s been invented. But $455? I gotta get a PS5 first lol
You can get by with around $250 worth of stuff and still play the same systems 😊
@@dinierto “$250” That’s what I told myself when I bought a PS1 again at 26 years old. Now I’m 28 with like $600 worth of PS1 games with cases & manuals lol I should’ve emulated 🤷♂️
@@Ichabod_Jericho I hear ya, the nice thing is you can start small with the cheaper parts and add or replace more later 😊
The only troubles it has is when you start wanting to play 3d pc games on it or you get a bad rom or rom library. I had a complete genesis library from archive and it was all pal roms and I’d didn’t realize it, they all ran terrible! I went back and forced the ntsc but because they were actual pal roms it didn’t matter. You want the “.gen” roms not the “.md”.
Other then that there’s no issues and it’s true HARDWARE emulation so loading the rom is like putting the cart into a real nes or genesis etc. I use it on my crt and my oled with scanlines and it is perfect.
@@zagreatandini2345 PAL roms will run at PAL speed, that's how the original consoles were. They were 50 Hz instead of 60 so some devs just let them run at the different speed rather than bothering to convert them over and run the same speed 😂