Under Construction - I feel like I might be just copying the wiki for the OT. Any help making this less plagiarized would be nice.
We can lock this thread if the mods disagree but considering how much news is coming out for this thing and how often the cores are going to be updated. If you want to contribute to this OT either post in the body and I will add it to the OT or DM me. Sorry for the lack luster OT.
What do I need to get started?
DE10-Nano Kit
This is all you need to get started on some of the cores. As of 10/27/2018 this video will give you a good idea what is available to you right out of the box. You will be able to hook the MiSTer up to any HDMI Monitor or TV and get going in minutes.
I think in one of the Smokemonster vids he mentioned that if the FPGA board the MiSTer uses went obsolete that it would be an āeasyā process to port the cores to a replacement chip/board. Does that mean you could hypothetically port the Kevtris/Analogue developed cores to this?
I donāt think so. Someone with the knowledge could explain the technical reasons why, but the Analogue/Kevtris cores are tightly locked down to their hardware and would be inoperable regardless if someone could extract them. No one has even gotten the Super NTās Turrican ROMs off that hardware to play elsewhere.
Smoke is saying MiSTer and its open source cores will run on future boards configured to run them.
As I understand it there are a various different FPGA chips, each with different code requirements. Thatās why original MiST (and clones like Mistica) cores are not compatible with MiSTer.
To port a core you need the source. Are kevtrisā cores open source?
I see that makes sense about it not being open source. Oh, thatās interesting about the Turrican rom, I totally would have assumed it had been extracted and put on a real cart by now.
There are a few consoles/home computers and, stupidly, arcade boards (I have to keep talking myself out from getting a CPS2) that I was looking into buying but hate having so much stuff already that Iām keen for a near solid all in one solution more than ever, hopefully, this and future open source FPGA builds will be a nice step in that direction.
So I installed MiSTer using the guide on the first page and followed the guide for installing PCE but when i load the core, it just goes to a blank screen. I am just not in the tinkering mood today. @mega did you get yours working yet?
I loaded a few cores but the only ones I got working so far is the PC Engine and Genesis.
Things I noticed that I liked. If you have the Smoke Monster Pack (or made your own organized lists of folders for your Everdrives), you can just copy the folders over and itās almost the same as using your ED. I really like that.
Pairing my 8bitdo wireless dongle with my controllers was super easy. I tried my XBOX controller and 8bitdo controllers to see how it worked out. You can map a button on your controller to bring up the menu. If you have one of the newer 8bitdo controllers with the menu button you can map that to bring up the core menu so you can change roms or whatever. The scan line options are pretty good in both cores.
Things I wasnāt so pleased with. For some odd reason, the Genesis/MD core uses region. It requires you to either load a script to auto select or you will have to leave a keyboard plugged in so you can get into the menu (F12 btw). You can use F1, F2, & F3 to select the region in the Genesis core. You can have the core use an auto select with the core but you need to change the file name (.bin for JP, .gen for US. .MD for EU. I am sure a European wrote this code )
I did notice some audio weirdness in streets of rage but I think that will be fixed soon (sonic rings sound good now).
Games that have saves, require you to create the save file prior to saving on the actual game. This is kind of weird. Maybe eventually, it will auto make a folder like most everdrives/emulators do.
I want to figure out how to output 4x or 5x. I saw that if you create a config folder, you can edit things with notepad and possibly change resolutions. I read that the MiSTer can output 1600x1200. Both my Monitor and 4K support this resolution via my OSSC.
@Socksfelloff used a hdmi to vga adapter (and forced 240p) for his PC to play on a CRT. I am wondering if I can do the same without getting the IO board add-on. I canāt figure out how to select resolution and I am not sure if I can get that same work around for a CRT.
For $130 bucks you really canāt beat having a good quality PC Engine + Super Grafx. If nothing else worked, I think that would be good enough to warrant the purchase. I hope the future brings more and more goodies to this platform.
I would read the Twitter thread, especially Ashās posts. Doesnāt seem like a major hindrance considering some consoles add more than 2 frames of lag on their own.
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