old and retro video games and how you play them (emulation, fpga, vintage hardware, remasters, analogue, whatever)

i couldn't find a thread as kind of a catch all for this stuff so i figured why not make one?

my buddy bought two fpga misters and is sending one my way and im very excited to tool around with these things!

i have a working snes (i think?) with a bunch of games and a crt, but nowhere to really plug it in so i guess i'll be re-enjoying those games on this weird little stack of pcbs! really tempted to see if i can find a home for the crt though, playing these games on the boob tube might just be the best.

talk to me about your expensive analogue machines, your mame projects, uh whatever!

I got hooked on acquiring emulators and curating a collection of games for a couple of years, so I have:

-NES Mini (hacked to have more games. A friend helped me do this)
-SNES Mini (hacked to have more games. A friend helped me do this)
-SEGA Genesis MINI
-Neo Geo Mini (International version; different versions come with different libraries of games)
-Anbernic RG350, a little handheld emulator device that runs retro systems, MAME, PS1 & a handful older computer game ports
-RetroPie
-OpenEmu for Mac on various computers

Just OpenEmu for me, and SCUMMV for adventure games, and whatever's on Switch

I'd love to try building a RetroPie or a Mister something like that, but it really is *so* easy to just connect an HDMI from my laptop to my TV, even though it feels like cheating

I'm so reliant on save states to finish games (mostly just love playing old platformers like SM3 and G&G and Shinobi) but I'm always thinking, how the ***fuck*** did anyone ever complete these without them? They're *so* difficult

This reminds me, I had this weird sticklebrick-sized device with a little red button that plugged into the back of my Amstrad, that was apparently a way of hacking games and getting infinite lives. It never worked! Always crashed the game. Can't remember what it was called though

but I'm always thinking, how the ***fuck*** did anyone ever complete these without them? They're *so* difficult

― Chuck_Tatum, Tuesday, 22 March 2022 19:30 (thirty-five minutes ago) link

Same! I'm pretty bad at retro games myself.

ooh i think i saw a video about that anbernic thing, evan! is it good?

re: the mister i wasnt even planning on getting one, but de10 boards went on sale when my friend was buying, he said i have 10 mins to close out this shopping cart you want one, and i was like uhhh yeah lets do it! ive never been much for plugging a laptop into the tv - not enough room, and i also like the idea of a device specifically for playing old games vs an entire computer which i could just end up watching youtube instead on.

i wanna know more about this amstrad cheat device now haha

xp when I was home a little while ago I found some very old stuff of mine that included a whole sheet with Road Rash II passwords. I know Desert Strike and other games used this as well, but like you’re saying, not universal by a long shot.

Yeah the RG350 is very cool! Some horror stories about units bricking for various reasons, but if you treat it nicely and charge it correctly and don't recklessly mess with the software it is that much more likely to be OK. It's fun to have Simpsons arcade game and Mother 3 and Marathon 2 and Metal Slug and Tony Hawk 3 all on a handheld device. Living the dream!

I use OpenEmu. There are some pretty comprehensive ROM collections on archive.org.

I've been trying to play Actraiser 2 this week because it looks so beautiful but it's really hard!!

I do have my old SNES and NES in storage but I would be really surprised if they still powered on.

Also my retro gaming is pretty basic - I have a snes & nes mini, stuff on switch like outrun, emulators like Zsnes & Kega (lol) for other stuff. I rarely play any of them much and then do like ten hours of Desert Strike or something I’ve played a million times before. Really only play a few of the older games through emulators cos I’m lazy af.

retropie with torrented game bundles (deleted most of the sports ones though)

haven't used it in months but I like to do 'game roulette' using the 'select a random game' option. worst case you spend five minutes trying to play something that's laughably bad, best case you discover something that's actually pretty good

I have never managed to complete Out Run even with saves

Unrelatedly, I went on a coastal driving trip in the South of France a couple years ago, and drove along with the Out Run themes on the stereo. It was amazing, a proper "small child in adult's body" fun experience

i have a retropie with some old faves on it but the cheap controller i bought for it isn't great. i have ps2 controller and n64 controller and probably just need x-to-usb converters for them.

aw geez now i am wishing this thing i just bought could handle outrun 2. playing that again would rule. i have it on my pc but last time i tried to play it, i tried modding it to have a better framerate and accidentally somehow made it 4x speed? rendering my install unplayable!!

outrun2006 is awesome. There's a mod program that lets you turn off the clock so you could just cruise around

xxp You are my hero

had a candy cabinet rig ages ago. Now the living room "tv" is a 24" monitor on a swivel mount (for vertical arcade games or pinball)... 2 old Wii fightsticks hooked up to an old Linux laptop running Retroarch. How's that different from openemu again?

i was leery to get back into all this, knowing the time it takes to config. Retroarch is impressive though.

oooh i would definitely love to play outrun 2006 without the clock, on that marathon mode where you go through every single level. but goddamn if ever there were a game that NEEDS a remaster where it's just the same game but running in 120 fps, that is it

the amount of Outrun games is the most amazing show of restraint in gaming

(yes i keep an analog controller handy with my setup)

i think the weird licensing deal with ferrari is the only reason they showed that much restraint! you cant even buy it on steam anymore iirc

omg what a thread, this is so up my alley!!! okay, so

I used to have a Raspberry Pi 3 w/ RetroPie and it served me v v well for everything up to PlayStation 1, then a few years ago a friend gave me an Intel NUC mini PC for my bday and it has changed everything, now I can do N64 (which I had as a kid) and PS2 (which I did not). So my current setup is this mini PC connected to my TV, it has Windows 10 and it boots automatically into Steam Big Picture Mode. In addition to all of my Steam games, I also have a ton of PS2 games added as individual games that are configured to launch with PCSX2, and then I have RetroArch added as a "game" and that launches RetroArch in full screen mode where I have all of my pre-PS2 games organized into playlists. All of this is controlled with a DualShock 4 but I have an app called DS4Windows that tricks the OS into thinking it's an Xbox controller instead (much better compatibility, rumble support, etc). I don't do ROM sets, I only download the specific games I want.

I've also got a jailbroken first-gen Wii w/ a hard drive attached that has a ton of Wii and GameCube games (which I play w an original Wavebird controller)

xp They all use a Ferrari? i wonder if there'd be anything stopping them just using fictional fast cars. No idea. I like Outrun a lot more than i like cars.

Nice Stevie

a couple of key points in there for anyone thinking to dive into these things:

- Pi seems really convenient as a standard machine than you could download readymade setups for

- if you go with huge romsets or not, have a tight, go-to list of your favorites, or else it's a mess

ya Pi is honestly perfect. I had RetroPie installed I it but apparently there’s something newer and better people are using instead now.

Are we allowed to post our fav spots for ROMs?

Used to use SCUMMVM and DOSBOX a bit, but the games would so often look blocky to the point of unintelligable on the screen. I really wanted to replay Dungeon Keeper but it looked shite!

Now, occasionally I'll play old Dreamcast/megadrive and SNES games on the Switch, but again, it feels clunky, really disapointed with the Occarina port for eg.

ya I read an article abt how bad the Ocarina release was. Apparently they’ve released an update that fixed a lot of the issues but damn, how embarrassing that Nintendo’s own rereleases are worse than something you could emulate yourself

Oh another thing I want to say, emulation has made me realize that I’m not a purist and that I actually love the improvements and quality of life hacks that emulators can do. I don’t fuck w CRT shaders or anything but I love that you can set the internal resolution of stuff to like 2-4x and it renders everything so smoothly and makes it look like an HD remaster

I got Ocarina after the recent fixes, it seems fine? I haven't got that far yet.

Excuse my lack of knowledge, but can you get the Pi to emulate PS2 and WiiU games? I've got a WiiU & WindWaker stashed in the basement but I never get them out because it's such a ugly big piece of crap to have lying around (the PS2 also)

i haven't done much with Pi but my laptop from 2012 is not much better. I've read that N64 and PS1 is about the limit for the current Pis.

I'm doing in-home streaming from a better system (to wherever in the house... ethernet wired) for anything PS2 and up. Been playing San Andreas with a friend, upscaled. I don't know how well they've fixed up the remasters for GTA3 but I don't think I'd have the patience for it without savestates.

Per upthread, old games might've been harder (which you wanted if you only had a few to play per year or whatever) but they also "respected" your time a lot less. Things was different 🤷‍♂️

Oh another thing I want to say, emulation has made me realize that I’m not a purist and that I actually love the improvements and quality of life hacks that emulators can do. I don’t fuck w CRT shaders or anything but I love that you can set the internal resolution of stuff to like 2-4x and it renders everything so smoothly and makes it look like an HD remaster

― Stevie D(eux), Thursday, March 24, 2022 8:44 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

interesting! i have to see how this stuff has come. i used to use zsnes a bunch way back in the day -- like maybe even 20 years ago, or lets say 15 -- and all of the smoothing effects made the games look awful to me. like the weird curviness of the anti aliasing made everything look like it was made of weird candies in a bad way. i should look into the newer ones to see how that has come along!

Outrun fans, I recommend that you check out Cannonball, a game engine that outputs an Outrun rom in widescreen, 60 fps, and other stuff.

I've got an Atari 2600 Jr with broken/missing cables in the garage, so I've been using old hardware to create emulator machines, to various levels of success. A hacked Wii, a Toshiba laptop running Batocera, and currently a Fire HD 8 with Lemuroid side-loaded. The latter two work great with an 8BitDo controller.

Wow, thanks for that Cannonball link - looks great! I've been waiting for a time trial mode my whole life.

that thing rules. I see there's a Linux version too.. getting that. Are there other single game emulators around these days?

Sat down with Outrun2006 and realized I don't have all the cars available. Fixed that with this savefile and while i'm at it this is the page for the mod program i mentioned. Also adds rumble and enables lens flare (which the other versions have and was just... left turned off in the PC version?)

someone else reading might also appreciate that this exists. 23 variations of Magical Sound Shower.

Excuse my lack of knowledge, but can you get the Pi to emulate PS2 and WiiU games? I've got a WiiU & WindWaker stashed in the basement but I never get them out because it's such a ugly big piece of crap to have lying around (the PS2 also)

― Chuck_Tatum, Thursday, March 24, 2022 7:57 AM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

So I'm maybe 3-4 years out of date on this but in my exp the Pi taps out at around N64. The Pi 3 I had choked on N64 games frequently enough that I just never really bothered with it, but I think the Pi 4 fares better with it. I know Wii/GC emulation is a lot less demanding than PS2 so you MIGHT be able to get some of that working, but for PS2 and WiiU you prob need an actual PC

interesting! i have to see how this stuff has come. i used to use zsnes a bunch way back in the day -- like maybe even 20 years ago, or lets say 15 -- and all of the smoothing effects made the games look awful to me. like the weird curviness of the anti aliasing made everything look like it was made of weird candies in a bad way. i should look into the newer ones to see how that has come along!

― Kompakt Total Landscaping (Will M.), Thursday, March 24, 2022 11:41 AM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

so the 3D upscaling is mostly for PS1/N64 stuff, and only 3D content and notv2D sprites, BUT a few years ago someone figured out how to render SNES Mode7 stuff at super high resolutions and it looks WILD (and it's included in SNES emulators now!)

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/04/hd-emulation-mod-makes-mode-7-snes-games-look-like-new/

Yeah pretty sure Pi can't do anything generally N64 or beyond but I'm also 3-4 years out of date! Also N64 itself is a tricky system for people to emulate for its own reasons, but that's a side note.

Bought and built one of these with a pi:

https://monsterjoysticks.com/all-in-one-joysticks

Bit overpriced maybe but a joyful thing to have and muck around with.

Runs retropie and I mostly just have some basic mame and snes stuff on it - that keeps me happy.

more playing than configuring you're ahead of the, er, game!

I did an expensive and convoluted thing for N64 play. N64 systems were wired to transmit RGB video, but in the US, we only got S-Video out (a single video channel instead of three). In EU, the 90s-era SCART output contained all three channels of video; I got the cabling so my N64 outputs SCART.

I had purchased some budget x-to-HDMI converters over the years for gaming but was always appalled at how weird and bad the results were. After shopping around online I decided to "fuck it" and I got a Framemaster, which converts many kinds of input into HDMI and allows a number of scaling and colouring options, as well as emulation of tube TVs with scanlines and so forth. I run SCART into it and It looks fantastic.

I sold all my N64 cartridges (except one, which I kept for dumb sentimental reasons), and got an Everdrive (a N64 cartridge loaded up with an SD card containing every game ever made for the system in every region and lots of home-brews and hacks).

Aside from that I have a SNES that I hacked myself, I've hacked SNESes for the children of friends three times now, I have a folder of age-appropriate ROMs on hand in case I'm asked to do it again

consider changing the name of your product to avoid any legal trouble

fgti that’s incredible!!!

someone else reading might also appreciate that this exists. 23 variations of Magical Sound Shower.

― maf you one two (maffew12), Saturday, March 26, 2022 10:05 AM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

haha ive got this on the ol hard drive :) im more of a splash wave guy, but the arranged version of passing breeze on disc 9 is all time

just bought a 3ds to install custom firmware on and become my goto all generation handheld device. keen to try some gba titles I never got round to. Apparently it emulates a fair proportion of psx games too, very keen to play silent hill while getting my tan on at the local beach this weekend

I generally just use whatever emulators exist on pc for retro gaming. DosBox for old pc games, Project 64 for N64 stuff, Vice for C64, WinUAE for Amiga, Spectaculator for Spectrum, also a souped up Spectrum app which the name escapes me right now (not at my home pc)

and Mame for arcade games of course, generally only ever play 1942 really though.

I like retro games that have been re-developed for modern hardware as well. Cannonball for Outrun is a great example.

I still own actual hardware like an Amiga, Spectrum +2 (a few of these) but setting up to use is barely worth it when I can play everything on my desktop.

As much as i love the older games from my childhood, playing them is becoming less and less these days.

ugh i wish i still had my old amiga! i think i sold it for 50 bucks to buy a single game boy game in 1997

they stuck a spectrum emulator on a raspberry pi zero into a cassette shell...

https://magpi.raspberrypi.com/articles/zx-spectrum-raspberry-pi-cassette

top picture not the best - it's the back side and mostly heatsink. but lol at the choice of cassette - a boots c15 - cheap and useful for only one thing.

5000-series "fat" PS2 (thus also a ps1) w modified network adapter + HDD for roms: SCART video out to open source scan converter, for flawless upscaling of 240/480p and smeary-but-instant passthru of 480i; optical audio out to DAC+amp

nintendo wii (thus also a gamecube) w basic library of n64 downloads actually purchased from the now discontinued and service-ized "virtual console": component video out to OSSC; rca audio out also to OSSC, to hitch ride on HDMI to TV and then back out again to DAC+amp, this is p dumb but mostly about where things are on the shelf

pc (snes9x, fusion, scummvm, dosbox etc) w wireless 8bitdo snes replica / wired hyperkin genesis replica controllers

still maintaining constant vigilance against geckos seeking to lay eggs in the warm innards of these apparata-- something early-gibson about the texture of this problem

wow i ahven't posted in this thread for a while eh. i have lots of updates with pretty pictures

fwiw i don't get the impression that ps1/saturn will ever be on the analogue pocket, and i don't see any evidence that the duo will be more powerful than the pocket, but uhh idk maybe someone out there knows better than me? another point for the mister, in that case -- ps1 is perfect on there, and saturn is getting there from what i've tried. can't wait until more stuff is added to the saturn core, namely uhh saving so i can play some saturn rpgs

correction: FPGA, not open FPGA

How do you like the pocket in terms of feel/durability compared to original handhelds?

the screen looks great, i've heard people complain that it's not an OLED but honestly it feels comparable to other OLED screens I've looked at (vita, phones, etc). just beautiful to look at.

not in love with the form -- it's about the size of a game boy color, but maybe a hair deeper, i'd prefer something a little wider like a DMG gameboy but absolutely not a dealbreaker. just gotta get used to that form factor again after decades of the ds/psp wide form factor.

the build quality seems fine but the plastic feels a little... cheap? like it kinda reminds me of that 3d printer plastic. the buttons are squishy in a way i don't love either, like they don't snap back as fast as i'd hope (for a/b/x/y). again not a deal breaker, just a little more... mid than i expected. dpad is very DMG/NES-like (minus the little grippy cut-ins), doesn't feel too wobbly like i'm gonna accidentally press DR when i wanna press D. It's no saturn dpad but what is? i'd still rate the d-pad as "good." and L/R/power/volume/select/start/menu are all good and clicky, as they should be. L/R in particular feel as good as the GBA ones did, and better than the PSP/vita/DS/3DS ones did.

i've mostly been using it for the fpga cores (vs the game slot) as i can only find one GB game in my house (and no GBA games dammit--i have tactics ogre somewhere!!). when you're using a cartridge it's luxurious-- the multiple display modes all look incredible. these are not available yet in the cores (aka with r0mz) though, which is kinda putting me off playing until they allow that. people have said this will be available in the future but who knows when, it doesn't seem like it should be hard to do? like it has the ability there? but i guess there's issues with analogue actually supporting the core scene here. and updates are slooooow (from analogue). the cores, of course, are done by nerds on the internet, so they're updating and popping up all the time.

if you want hardware-accurate playing it's hard not to recommend it because literally what other options are there lol. if you just want something that'll play games and don't care about the fpga aspect though, i dunno if the extra cost really makes it worth it vs like the miyoo mini or whatever (have not played but heard good things) using software emulation. i did expect it to feel a little... fancier. but it does what i want it to do, so i'm happy.

https://i.imgur.com/dxJpFPa.png

apologies for the amateur photography, but here's a side-by-side of a bunch of the visual modes for the pocket, with the core used for roms included. this thing has exactly 10x the resolution of the DMG, which lets them do cool stuff like draw in the lines in between pixels, and someone has done an amazing job recreating the old machines-- dmg looks just like a real dmg but better, pocket looks like a pocket but better, pocket light looks like how i imagined the pocket light looking -- but even without that extra mask, in the default "analogue gb", no-extra-frills mode looks solid here. compare to the last one, and see why it bugs me? look at the color of the shadow under the P - it's not even the same color! it's like some weird hybrid of the DMG and GBPL palettes, but more washed out, it doesn't really commit to anything and you lose the "intent" of those shadings that blurred into something pretty back in the day.

i can't compare the GBC and GBA cores to real carts yet, i might try to get a cheap one of each on ebay just to compare, but i imagine it'll just make me similarly frustrated.

oh and one last minor gripe: the cart slot is completely, like, exposed, which makes it feel very weird to not have a cart in? like it'd be too easy to bump and screw up the slot? so i just permanently keep the only game i could find plugged in, which happens to be pokemon red, which i am self conscious about because i am fine with being seen in public as a nerd who plays game boy but not a nerd who plays pokemon red on game boy

Thanks for the detailed review! I'd always been tempted by the idea of a "luxury" handheld, so less than stellar buttons and dpad would definitely have been a disappointment after a multi-year waitlist.

i would still say -- unless fpga emulation is important to you, the most luxurious handheld one can get is like, a ps vita 1000 (jailbroken, which is dead easy to do at home), or an android phone with a good wraparound controller. i might change my tune a few firmwares (or cores) down the line tho! i mean my dang phone can almost handle dreamcast and it's a pixel 4a. the pocket currently tops out at like snes

I should figure out where I stashed my psp. I lost it for nearly a decade having thought it was gone after I moved, and then found it only to not have the right charger but jury-rigged something that would only get it up to like 10%

It was hackable to play emulators and I have to agree even on the mere PSP, Sony hardware + emulator is kind of amazing

psp is great too! sadly the battery on mine turfed out, and then i bought a replacement online which proceeded to grow very big and scary...

but the vita screen... my god. it's insane that that thing is as old as it is and still looks better than most things on the market. just a gorgeous screen. (the original vita specifically -- as i understand it, they cut the OLED from the slim vita!)

Ok I had had a digital io board on my mister and was running hdmi thru a series of different hdmi converters/scalers for crt... Finally caved and bought an analog io board. If you plan on using this thing on a crt even occasionally, JUST GET THE ANALOG IO BOARD. You can still use hdmi (afaict the only advantage of the Digi board is it lets you slot two ram cards, which is... Unnecessary for all stable core releases?) and the difference between a pure analog signal and an hdmi to converter... My god, THIS IS WHAT IT'S SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE

Also, the 8bitdo m30 controller is so damn nice

I'd use it for everything if the 6 button layout didn't feel weird for... Anything non-sega. I have an sn30 for everything else, which is... Fine? But not as good

How do you find the latency on bluetooth?
How are the various clone portables in terms of controller feel/responsiveness?

i don't use the BT much, i've just got them plugged by USB. i'm sitting right beside this little 20" trinitron so no need for it. i'll try it later today though

https://rpubs.com/misteraddons/inputlatency

from that list it looks like the worst case is about 30ms lag, which is a frame i think? seems within tolerable limits, much better than the brutal experience i had with trying a 3rd party switch controller on BT with my phone that one time (that was like 3 second lag. brutal)

30ms is closer to 2 frames, a 60hz frame is about 16.7ms

2 frames total lag (from button press to onscreen result) would be very good indeed but game, console, and monitor-specific lag all need to be taken into account and that list has latency figures *only* for the controllers and *only* when used with the mister

ok last spam of the day 6th gen poll (ps2 era)

any of yall use one of the many many handhelds emulator machines?

Think there was talk of this in the "what are you playing now", or some other I love games thread

Yeah, I recently got an RG35XX and I've been playing it tons. Currently working through some of the GBA library that I paid to access on Switch, but which I'd much rather play on this cuter/more portable device. I was worried that the 3.5 inch screen would seem too cramped, but it doesn't bother me at all.

It's also been fun for light tinkering; I installed a custom OS, and took it apart to install improved shoulder buttons/put some electrical tape under the D-pad, which was registering false diagonals. So now it feels really like it's "mine," which is not how I ever expected to feel about a piece of cheap consumer electronics. These things are neat!

looks way more affordable/easier to get than an Analogue... tempting

Yeah if not being FPGA isn't an issue for you, and you don't mind a cheap build quality, I say go for it. You get the added benefit of being able to play older console titles too, not just handhelds. Some of these things can even run up to sixth-generation consoles. As m bison noted, there are many of these things on the market, with a wide range of capabilities. It's quite the rabbit hole.

the steam deck is awesome but obviously much more than just an emulator handheld and much more expensive.
my only gripe is that many of the recommended "emulation launchers" are written by linux newbies who are figuring it out as they go along. not really an issue for most people, but there have been a few times where i thought i'd contribute or fix a bug, took one look at the code, and immediately dropped the idea

i still haven't installed emudeck. i hate steam deck desktop mode.

Chuck Tatum was your sticklebrick thing a "Multiface"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiface

I’ve got a miyoo mini+ loaded with onionOS. it’s great

i still haven't installed emudeck. i hate steam deck desktop mode.

yeah desktop mode is pretty intolerable without a mouse and keyboard, i generally try to do any non-steam thing remotely over ssh. but i'm also a huge linux dork who is over the moon that a best-in-class gaming device runs the OS

also if you're more used to the retropie-style retroarch+emulationstation approach, there's also retrodeck you can try but both will require dropping down to desktop mode :)

i got paid today so i dropped some money on the retroid pocket 4, i like that it'll handle all the n64 games im interested in and some ps2 as well

fyi. Just the screenshots alone are a serious trip.

https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games

I bought a Mister FPGA and it’s maybe the best gaming purchase I’ve made. Totally rules and worthy of the hype. I know emulation has come a long way since I last heavily fucked with it, but at the time I remember being a little bummed that a lot of my old favorites didn’t feel as enjoyable as I’d remembered. Chalked it up to rose tinted memory.

But digging through stuff on the Mister has been a bit of a revelation. I think what soured me on my emulation travels, that I didn’t fully clock at the time, was the input latency. With a decent low latency controller plugged into Mister, there’s like zero (humanly detectable) lag and things just snap and feel right. Looks brilliant on a big ole modern OLED too with countless quality filter presets to tweak if you want a CRT (or just about any other) look.

It’s great. Been digging through the NEO GEO and Saturn catalogues as of late. Kinda want to fire up the 486 core and load up some stuff I haven’t played in 30 years. All sorts of old computer stuff in there that I haven’t even touched yet.

Can’t recommend it enough. Super cool thing.

PS2 hard drive soft-mod kinda unbelievably easy and great to run on these days!

I’ve been thinking about digging out my old PS2 and looking into mod options. Mister got me hyped on the retro game tip, so I made the leap and ordered a (expensive! but apparently excellent!) Retrotink 4K, which hasn’t arrived yet. Kinda wanna plug whatever I can into it.

Mister is definitely on my radar. I had one of the older Mists, with MIDI ports that I intended to emulate Atari ST stuff on, but could never really get it to work. 12 years ago, or whatever it was, it felt like a hobby unto itself to get this stuff even functional, so it seemed hopeless for creative work (for me! not to diminish anyone elses hobbies). Looks like things have come a long way. I would order one in a second if they could get a more modern 68k/OS9 core going.

Will say the Mister has been a fairly painless set-up process if you’re moderately Google savvy, took an afternoon to get up and running. And a nice “update all” script pulls all the basics from the internet to get you the essentials and latest updates.

Some cores need extra files and require a little forum diving, but I wouldn’t say any of them were a major headache. Save for the Neo Geo, which drove me a little mad. But once a core’s running, it’s running and you don’t have to think about it again.

Very easy to get lost in the infinite settings if you like to tinker though.

a mister is totally up my alley but i haven't really pulled the trigger due to a) it being dependent on a proprietary development board subsidized for customers putting in multi-million dollar chip orders and b) it's big and ugly as shit

the first point is somewhat mitigated now with the clone boards popping up, but i fear that the mister will always be an abomination of ports in every direction with daisy chained daughter boards

The DE-10 Nano? Not at all familiar with your ethical beef there, but be glad to hear about it. Makes sense for the community to agree on one FPGA board to work with just to keep this (international, highly collaborative) project from being a total clusterfuck. And it makes sense to decide on an affordable one used by students and

As far as your aesthetic beefs… it’s a circuit board that’s about the size of a cell phone.

Oops, finger slipped, unfinished post.

I could be totally ignorant on your former point, but you’re definitely confused about the latter.

rare example of a circuit board fan heating things up

is not having a Windows computer a barrier to getting shit working on mister?

No experience with it personally, but from what I’ve seen set up on Mac shouldn’t be a problem. Info’s out there.

lol darragh

Sorry if I came off hostile. The “huge, ugly, abomination” angle is just kind of a weird take, it’s a pretty tiny thing that is as ugly as whatever case you decide to stick it in.

There are optional boards you can get (I got the USB hub, recommended) that cleanly attach to the main board. And that all cleanly slots into my small, inoffensive case. Peripheral design another point in favor for using a standard.

Cool that there are clones in the works that will make these more accessible and affordable though. I get why it sucks having the project dependent on a specific manufacturer, just seemed like a choice that had to be made.

i don't want to belabor the point because i do think it's a cool project and i was being flippant. apologies if it came across as harsh; my criticisms are mostly "me problems" as i am an insufferable ass-thete and free software/hardware advocate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfZxOuc9Qwk

The KX-45ED1, aka the PVM-4300, was rumored to be the largest CRT ever made. A mysterious picture of one has circled the internet for years. Join me as we uncover the mystery of this massive and mythical tube TV.

the taki udon fpga psone lookalike went on presale last week and i ended up impulse ordering one... oops! they are very pretty, i guess i'll have two misters now. there are worse things to have two of i suppose!

I've thought about buying one (they do look very cool, especially the translucent blue one), though TBH I am not sold on the virtues of FPGA vs traditional emulation. Meaning, the flaws of traditional emulation have never really been a dealbreaker for me. Perhaps I'm missing something though.

hardware emulation has less input latency than software emulation is the main thing i think. for all those oldschool difficult action games where input precision is important

but yeah overall i agree, i was tempted by the mister previously but i'm back in a minimize # of electronics/appliances phase of my life. software emulation on PC and switch is good enough

Interesting. I'm gonna blame my sucking at NES Castlevanias on the input latency, then.

i think for me the appeal is that i am playing these on a crt anyway, so these devices give me an analog 480i (or whatever the device does) feed very easily. software emulation devices these days aren't made for old analog outputs