MiSTer FPGA Neo Geo core

Locutus73

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MiSTer is an open-source project using a Terasic DE10-Nano FPGA dev board and some custom daughter boards to implement a retro computer/console/arcade FPGA multisystem.
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki

Furrtek is a French guy who is decapping, studying, documenting and reimplementing Neo Geo hardware through FPGA
https://github.com/neogeodev/NeoGeoFPGA-sim

In the end the two crossed their paths and this was born:
https://github.com/furrtek/Neogeo_MiSTer
https://github.com/furrtek/Main_MiSTer

An early demo with no sound and many things to be implemented or addressed... but still impressing and things move fast in MiSTer land.
 
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Gog

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Who doesn’t enjoy a shart?

As long as it happens to someone else of course.
 

theMot

Reformed collector of junk
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Who doesn’t enjoy a shart?

As long as it happens to someone else of course.


No, I quite enjoy them myself, especially when I am far from home.

Tell me Loctus friend, if I purchase this shart cable will I be able to shart on demand? If it doesn’t work, what is the refund policy?
 

Heinz

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I have had sharts away from home that I would be embarassed to have in my home and glad that they werent. Does the mister have a shart core? I want to simulate sharting in all its glory.
 

Locutus73

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BTW MiSTer supports both HDMI out through a nice scaler with many customizable filters (a super low lag mode is coming) and analog RGB or YPbPr through an optional IO add on board. Furrtek is using an analog only core for development/debug since it’s quicker to synthesize/compile.
 

Locutus73

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Answer my question.
As you can see, the cable is DIY, so no refunds after it has been assembled and/or sharted.
And no, no shart cores, only good old computer/console/arcade ones...
 
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Pasky

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Eh, it's kinda lame because the CPU is emulated via the ARM processor and the FPGA is doing the video and audio. Might as well just play neo geo on a rasperry pi.
 

Locutus73

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Eh, it's kinda lame because the CPU is emulated via the ARM processor and the FPGA is doing the video and audio. Might as well just play neo geo on a rasperry pi.
Not at all, CPU and the rest of Neo Geo is done in FPGA (just like all other MiSTer cores). You can find 68K HDL code here https://github.com/furrtek/Neogeo_MiSTer/tree/master/cpu. The ARM runs a lightweight Linux with an executable which essentially:
a) Implements the main menu and loads FPGA rbf cores into Cyclone V SE FPGA.
b) Interacts with FPGA core for loading ROM files in RAM accessed by FPGA.
c) Processes USB keyboard/mouse/joypad inputs and translates them into signals that can be sent to FPGA which will treat them as original controllers input (but there’s an optional add on board in work which will send directly original controllers input to FPGA, bypassing Linux).
d) For computer cores with floppy or HDD access, it gets read/write request from FPGA cores and responds to them reading/writing image files on the SD.

A completely different thing from a Pi running software emulators.
 
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kuze

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Cool to see the Neo Geo getting some love in FPGA land!
 

Pasky

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Not at all, CPU and the rest of Neo Geo is done in FPGA (just like all other MiSTer cores). You can find 68K HDL code here https://github.com/furrtek/Neogeo_MiSTer/tree/master/cpu. The ARM runs a lightweight Linux with an executable which essentially:
a) Implements the main menu and loads FPGA rbf cores into Cyclone V SE FPGA.
b) Interacts with FPGA core for loading ROM files in RAM accessed by FPGA.
c) Processes USB keyboard/mouse/joypad inputs and translates them into signals that can be sent to FPGA which will treat them as original controllers input (but there’s an optional add on board in work which will send directly original controllers input to FPGA, bypassing Linux).
d) For computer cores with floppy or HDD access, it gets read/write request from FPGA cores and responds to them reading/writing image files on the SD.

A completely different thing from a Pi running software emulators.

My mistake then, I remember checking this project out and it was using the ARM CPU to emulate the 68000.
 

Locutus73

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My mistake then, I remember checking this project out and it was using the ARM CPU to emulate the 68000.
Probably you read some wrong misleading post somewhere... no MiSTer core uses (or ever used) this hybrid approach. We could say MiSTer is hybrid in the sense that it processes USB input or floppy/hdd access through Linux, but apart that all the computer/console/arcade hardware is reimplemented in FPGA. Having a Linux backend is cool... I wrote several utility scripts, i.e. all my ROMs are on a NAS, the Linux exec loads them through the network and passes them to the FPGA cores. These days I’m fiddling with syncing game saves with Google Drive.
 
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Newsdee

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The FPGA is basically running a NeoGeo-on-a-Chip, while there is an ARM CPU on the side to switch cores, load data from the SD card, and similar "housekeeping" duties without getting on the way of the FPGA core.

Video upscaling is fully done on the FPGA side so it's like having an integrated XRGB or OSSC. It's also possible to get VGA or RGB out for CRT monitors.
 

sparksterz

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If I recall, weren't there concerns about overfilling the standard SDRAM expansion capacity?
 

sparksterz

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Yeah - I've been meaning to pick up a MiSTER setup. I may just get the bare one for now and wait to see what pans out in that department.
 

gray117

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Always good to see the MisTER works progress. After all the disappointing/difficult emulation comings and goings it's great to see accurate models of hardware created anew. And even if you prefer some other incarnation, or a different approach - like the analogue packages etc. - there's a lot of good work going into this kind of work. And a open source effort to keep this coherent and progress moving forward, is frankly something we should be thankful for.

With the neo specifically I would taper buy-in expectations until things settle down a bit though... and we let the sdram issue and other board/component offerings kerfuffle cool for a while.

But yeah nice to know there's someone doing god's work in regards to the neo rather than another snes project :P
 
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kingcuckmelon1

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This stuff is really interesting. Would it be possible, once all the research is done on this, to create new multi slot boards? Ones with Jamma connectors etc. that do not have input lag? Ive been following the furrtek guy for the last year, he really is doing "God's" work.
 
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