MiSTer FPGA Neo Geo core

Lee_Rekka

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I thought I read somewhere that PSX/N64 capable FPGA chips are like a decade away from being feasible in reasonably priced consumer product.

I'm no expert on this by any means, but from my understanding, the De10 Nano that MiSTer uses supposedly tops out around PS2 era. N64 is possible, the problem lies in someone putting in the time to reverse engineer it to make it work. I know someone was actually working on PSX for MiSTer a while ago, but I don't know how far along they are.
 

J-P

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It's pretty exciting. I priced up the total package and it's just under $480 USD with IO board, SD card, USB and cables etc. I see that I wasn't the only one stoked by seeing the Cave developments. Neo Geo is fairly well documented hardware-wise, so hopefully, there could be a NeoGeo core approaching fairly soon. It's worth it right now for VGA/RGB capable PC-Engine, Mega Drive and NES. But awesome that X68k dev is ongoing as well as possibilities for FM-Towns and other old japanese machines.
 

heihachi

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I'm no expert on this by any means, but from my understanding, the De10 Nano that MiSTer uses supposedly tops out around PS2 era. N64 is possible, the problem lies in someone putting in the time to reverse engineer it to make it work. I know someone was actually working on PSX for MiSTer a while ago, but I don't know how far along they are.

I googled around a bit and found some comments from kevtris along the lines of psx being doable but n64 maybe less so. It does seem like any consoles newer than that aren’t quite possible yet.

A Neo Geo FPGA console like super/mega NT that spits out a really nice HDMI signal would be cool, but I don’t think the demand is there.
 

gamelife00

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I'd love Analogue to release an FPGA NEO-GEO with slots for MVS and AES...shut up and take my money!! :)
 

GohanX

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ElectronAsh is making an add on board called the LLCoolJoy, that will bypass having to use USB for controllers. But personally, I can't notice any perceivable lag over the USB at all, and I would say i'm very picky when it comes to input lag because I play on real hardware on CRT all the time.

Considering consoles and computers have been using USB for controllers for 20 years now I'm not sure this is a real thing. I understand the theoreticals with polling and such but the only time I've ever really experienced it is in hacked together science projects.
 

mikew

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Considering consoles and computers have been using USB for controllers for 20 years now I'm not sure this is a real thing. I understand the theoreticals with polling and such but the only time I've ever really experienced it is in hacked together science projects.

I think you're right. Considering there's no perceivable lag and that for most console cores a USB joypad is often more desirable then something like an arcade stick, it's really a non-issue. That said, there's a lot of arcade cores that would benefit from arcade sticks but until the MVS core is ready I don't think it matters so much.
 

mikew

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There's simply not enough free I/O to add cartridge slots. With all the add-on's attached there isn't many pins left. Even if there were there would be voltage level issues and perhaps current draw issues, especially with massive neo carts.
 

c0nn0r

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Considering consoles and computers have been using USB for controllers for 20 years now I'm not sure this is a real thing. I understand the theoreticals with polling and such but the only time I've ever really experienced it is in hacked together science projects.

Consoles that use USB have software developed with the inherent USB lag in mind. Old arcade games and old consoles were designed with immediate input as standard.

For me the point of MISTER is to have accurate representations of the originals. Controls included.
 

mikew

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Consoles that use USB have software developed with the inherent USB lag in mind. Old arcade games and old consoles were designed with immediate input as standard.

For me the point of MISTER is to have accurate representations of the originals. Controls included.

Most consoles and arcade games still only check for input during the VBLANK period so 1/60th of a second (every 16.67ms) . So long as MiSTer or any other emulator polls USB faster than that the timing will be preserved.
 

c0nn0r

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Most consoles and arcade games still only check for input during the VBLANK period so 1/60th of a second (every 16.67ms) . So long as MiSTer or any other emulator polls USB faster than that the timing will be preserved.

USB polling speed is limited by the input queue of the host system. While the data may be pulled from USB in time, there are additional non-uniform delays resulting from the application getting data from the input queue. In the case of MISTER, USB is controlled by the unix OS running on the co-CPU. It's difficult to ensure that there is no delay on that side of things. One of the major issues is of course that these delays from the OS are not constant. Changing latency makes it impossible to get a muscle-memory to compensate for lag.

+1 for direct core access to inputs. - and that's the way it going. Most new cores will have direct access to controls.
 

Kid Panda

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Acktually..... a lot pcbs and games have inherent lag. Some games, suck as battle garegga have like 2 frames on lag on the hardware. It's all different across systems and games.
 

c0nn0r

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Acktually..... a lot pcbs and games have inherent lag. Some games, suck as battle garegga have like 2 frames on lag on the hardware. It's all different across systems and games.

This is true. Ideally each game plays on MiSTer as it did on original hardware.
 

Lee_Rekka

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This is true. Ideally each game plays on MiSTer as it did on original hardware.

As far as I can tell, every game I've played on MiSTer does play and feel like the original. I've beat a ton of games on it that i'm used to playing on original hardware, like Contra Hard corps and Battletoads which both have very precise timing and I'm basically just using muscle memory to beat them, I had no issues at all.
 

pva

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There's simply not enough free I/O to add cartridge slots. With all the add-on's attached there isn't many pins left. Even if there were there would be voltage level issues and perhaps current draw issues, especially with massive neo carts.

On a semi-related note, people have been trying to get the Retrode (a USB-based Genesis/SNES cart reader) going on MiSTer on Atari-Forum, and even that has been an uphill struggle.
 

GohanX

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Fuck, better work on replacing the human brain with a FPGA.
 

XxHennersXx

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I googled around a bit and found some comments from kevtris along the lines of psx being doable but n64 maybe less so. It does seem like any consoles newer than that aren’t quite possible yet.

A Neo Geo FPGA console like super/mega NT that spits out a really nice HDMI signal would be cool, but I don’t think the demand is there.

I think the demand is there since the minis are selling well. Especially if you can just run the Roms without a NeoSD. I honestly think there’s a bigger market for FPGA Neo than a TG16.
 

Beckett

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The core so far is pretty great (For what I can run with 32 MB of RAM). Only issue is that Twinkle Star Sprite has sound issues, but is still very playable.

I hope to try out the rest once I get the 128 MB SDRAM stick.
 

Gaston

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The core so far is pretty great (For what I can run with 32 MB of RAM). Only issue is that Twinkle Star Sprite has sound issues, but is still very playable.

I hope to try out the rest once I get the 128 MB SDRAM stick.

Any games that simply don't run at all as far as you've seen?
 

Beckett

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Any games that simply don't run at all as far as you've seen?

I know Vliner will not work, along with the NG.Dev team games to my knowledge.

There is a glitch when using the MVS mode though. A few game’s copy protection kick in (Metal Slug 2), so you can’t enable the blood or put in more credits. It’s a bit of a bummer..

Besides that, everything seems to work fine. Even the games that require more ram to run properly run (Though they look garbled as hell).
 
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awbacon

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It can't be long until Analogue puts out a Neo Geo FPGA console. I feel like thats a super logical next step for them
 

XxHennersXx

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It can't be long until Analogue puts out a Neo Geo FPGA console. I feel like thats a super logical next step for them

Considering how fast AliExpress sells out of those CBOX CMVS that are the same price as most FPGA consoles (AVS, Super NT, and Mega SG all are $180) it would sell amazingly. Especially if they got 8Bitdo to clone the CD pad, or made it also compatible with SNES controllers or something.
 
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