Finally - I got my hands on a MiSTer FPGA Retro Gaming Setup | MVG 

I'll admit im a total n00b when it comes to the MiSTer Project and FPGA, so if i missed anything or made an error somewhere please let me know. Have a great week!

I'm glad you enjoyed it! There are a few things you didn't cover that I think are noteworthy: 1. Dual output. You can run the analog and HDMI output simultaneously. My main setup has both a PVM and 4K TV, so it's convenient. 2. The 2P Gameboy cores. Being able to have a 1-on-1 in Gameboy Tetris or GBA Puyo Puyo this easily is great fun. Continuing on from #1, you can even set it to have one screen on analog output and the other on HDMI. 3. User IO. This is a massively important feature for me personally, because this combined with analog output allows me to use actual light guns for light gun games. Long story short, with the right adapters you can essentially plug a real NES zapper into the virtual NES core, hook it up to a CRT, and play Duck Hunt just like on a real NES. Of course you can use it with original controllers as well, but c'mon real light guns. Some computer cores let you use this port for MIDI and UART as well. But yeah, my MiSTer will be a mainstay in my bag when I have game nights at my girlfriend's place.

The picture quality of the output image and screen recording is amazing.

Admittedly the costs are inflated somewhat at the moment but even the top end cost equates to roughly to a Super NT and Mega SG combined. The value proposition for FPGA based equivalents is weighted so heavily towards the Mister 👌

It's sad this is getting so expensive. When I set mine up it was $140 for the board, 30 for the ram, and a $10 USB OTG hub. It runs all the cores and has perfect HDMI output. $700 is a super enthusiast build for sure but 300 for the base system is really a symptom for the chip storage.

I bought the De10 Nano for only $100 USD back when the MiSTer project started about 3 years ago. The add-on RAM module was about $40 and the I/O board was about $50. So I was all in for under $200 back then, and I thought THAT was a lot! Today’s prices are insane. The project has come so far in that time. Way back when, there was only a small handful of arcade cores, and you had to recompile your own cores from the individual roms for each game back then.

This is some really impressive tech. It's truly amazing to see a hardware recreation like this that is so robust.

Damn, I'm glad I purchased two of them about 2 years ago when they were available for regular price. I agree with everything said. The Mister is pretty much my goto gaming device. Use it with a 27 inch Sony Wega and the results are amazing.

i really dig your arcade cabinet. you have inspired me. Im setting a goal to have an FPGA Arcade cab in the living room by the end of the year. Wish me luck.

Mine is the 'board stack' with the analog board on top and the USB board underneath, costed about $450 two or three years ago. I enjoy playing around with it quite a bit, even built my own USB arcade controller with sanwa stick and buttons for when I play arcade cores.

Glad you enjoyed the MiSTer. One big selling point for me was being able to do all this without the need for scalers, deinterlacers, or expensive console mods. HDMI just works with everything.

The MiSTer is endlessly fascinating!

The good thing is that the game files can be kept on a USB drive separate to the MiSTer SD card. This will help with keeping the SD card for the arm-linux underpinnings, the cores and bios files with the rest on a USB drive. You could put it all on a huge SD card but those can be pretty expensive with an external USB drive - even 2.5" SSDs in a USB enclosure being a financial sound solution for access to large libraries of games.

So glad to see this covered here! This project has looked *hugely* promising for a while now, I'm so happy to see it growing like this and that it actually seems to live up to its promise!

Really great breakdown of the project and where its headed. Thank you for making this video!!!

"hey mister" props to who gets this reference...

Here we are 7 months later and Saturn development on the MiSTer has come a long way. Tons of compatible games running perfectly!

Uh, nice touch, the Amiga Pinball Illusions music at the beginning 😁

Emulation has come a long way but the MiSTer has impressed me more than most emulation has.

I have 2 MiSTers - it's a fantastic project. Nice video.

Once the Saturn core lands I am all over this thing.

Everyone always says it's hardware emulation, but never really explains what that means. An FPGA (field programmable gate array) is programmable hardware that can function as any type of digital circuit as long as it has enough logic elements to accommodate the design of that system. Compared to something like MAME, there is no operating system or emulation software, the game actually runs directly on the simulated hardware circuit. Even though I use the word 'simulated', an FPGA is hardware in every sense of the word, it just happens to be highly configurable so that the hardware can behave in different ways instead of being hard-wired to do one specific thing. Now the DE10-Nano's main chip has two components to it, the FPGA and a separate ARM-based CPU. The ARM-based CPU runs a very minimal copy of Linux which is used for a few simple tasks like reading joystick inputs over USB. From there, those inputs are forwarded straight into the FPGA's hardware circuit where the game actually runs. That does mean you get both the good and the bad of running in hardware though: 1) Keeping in mind that the core running on the FPGA is just a hardware circuit, it's not like an ARM CPU running a software emulator where it might struggle to keep up with the emulation. An accurate core will run at the same speed as the original hardware, but that also means that a game which lagged on original hardware will also lag on the MiSTer. 2) Because it's just a hardware circuit, it's very hard to capture the full state of the entire system, which is something that is easy to do with software emulation (where the entire state is stored in memory). So more often than not you can't get save-state functionality on the MiSTer unless it's been baked into the core at a hardware level. 3) Many cartridge-based consoles will save progress by writing data to some memory location on the cartridge which is kept alive using a battery. Since there is no equivalent battery and many cores can't identify that such a memory write has occurred, you usually need to manually save using the MiSTer menu to dump that memory out to a file. Not a big deal, but it is an annoyance worth mentioning. Finally, keep in mind it's still emulating a complex piece of hardware, the key difference is that you're emulating hardware using hardware, instead of emulating hardware using software. The quality of the experience still comes down to the skill of the developer and maturity of the core.

This is a pretty good surface level look at what the MiSTer is. I find the MiSTer is less complicated than Raspberry Pi Retro Gaming and is closer to setting up a Flash Cart in many respects.

Very cool! FPGA tech is extremely interesting wherever it is applicable. I'm waiting for delivery a of syntheizer I preordered that implements it, so cool to see it being applied in the gaming scene too.

That Pinball table at 11:43 I'm getting real appleseed vibes.

Projects like this are just amazing. Its good to know in the future people will still be able to not only play all these games, they will be able to do it easily and in comfort.

I can't wait to get the MiSTercade for my Aero City cab. I just got the cab and restored it so using a Pi2JAMMA but the MiSTercade is what I want!

Their is something soo cool about the engineering and tinkering going on here

boy were u wrong :D mister user since day one here. a word about latancy would have been nice as that is what gives the real feel on a crt with this beauty. latency is for me reason nr. 1 to go fpga. anyways: awesome that you covered it finally and you rock. greetz from germany.

Using the Mister for 3 years now, its worth every fucking penny!!!!

FPGA or Field Programming Gate Array...That's one of term that is relatively new in emulation scene. Basically, FPGA is a hardware that allows programmer to fully emulate the machine at hardware level by "shapeshifting" the CPU architecture into desired ones.

O own a MiSTer for a couple of years. It was in no way expensive as it is now. I wanted it as a good Amiga emulator and I had been glancing on the MiST project this is based on. I own a good vintage computer collection, but space is scarce and vintage hardware is prone to break, often with unobtainable components. After setting up my MiSTer, I was amazed on how many systems it could emulate. In fact this is one of the drawbacks: after owning a MiSTer, there is not much point in getting further vintage hardware! So, you lose the fun in browsing eBay for good deals to increase the collection. Being a Commodore fan, I must say that I prefer BMC64 to MiSTer for C64 emulation and it supports all other 8 bit CBM computers. For emulating the Amiga, I think the better option is PI400 with the bare metal Amiga emulator. Don't recall the name, but you can find fully configured images. But yes, MiSTer is a cool piece of HW and I often leave some arcade emulation running on the background when on inline meetings. It's a cool conversation starter...

one thing you left out is that you don't need a "complete" mister setup to get the most out of it. Just a de-10 nano, an otg usb hub, a fan, and a 32mb ram expansion, will cover the vast majority of what the mister has to offer.

Okay, the whole output to CRT thing is the best thing about this. The price is almost what it would cost to built a small form factor mini PC with an IGPU, which could easily handle every CRT console except maybe Wii, PS2, and GC, as well as letting you play low-spec PC games. Still, this at least has a reason to exist, unlike RetroPIE/RetroArch which just slowly runs a buggy ARM port of a PC emulator.

Seeing how one little box worth like 700 bucks can replace all the arcade cabinets, home computers, and even create entirely new cores, this is a mighty cheap and space saving option for any retrogamer. Buying the "original hardware" is always a tricky business, with death batteries and other tricky stuff in the mix, like chips that are impossible or expensive to replace if they should fail.

Got mine from Neal from RMC's project, the Multisystem, and while I was looking forward to it mostly for the analog output to a PC monitor, but the accuracy makes playing these games FEEL great to play as well. Highly recommend grabbing a SNAC adapter for your favorite console, the difference between that and an 8bitdo controller running in wired mode blew me away. It's hard to describe, and the money isn't RPi cheap, but it's really worth it.

Thanks! I was waiting for that :D

14:12 If anyone out there is wondering about that Castlevania game in this video…it’s Castlevania Chronicles for PlayStation 1

Sounds like MVG isn't giving MISTer back. Cool project. The best projects are group labors of love.

Hey MVG, It's been a while that you have done a room tour, It would be fun to watch an updated review of your own collection now that your mention the Mister and what you think about your setup/consoles. Thanks for the uploads :)

Lucky..... I've got the components on order.... currently taking bets on whether they or my Analogue Pocket ships first.

I tried the MiSTer next to some software emulators as well. To be very honest, if I am just focusing on playing the game and having fun, I don't really see any major differences. If you just hyper focus on the details, you will notice a few here and there. There are definitely some exceptions here and there. In the end I think it's more a feel thing than anything as well as the ease of use. It also really depends what you're looking for and what kind of things you're emulating. Upscaling up to 4k with plenty of anti-aliasing is just never gonna happen obviously. Btw, the term "emulation" here is getting EXTREMELY blurry. Most ASICs these days (and also back then) are actually first being made on a FPGA (I used to work at a couple of companies doing that). Depending on production scale this sometimes is being translated to an ASIC. Which is often cheaper, but you will loose the option to (completely) change the design. If the quantities are very limited one can choose for just leaving it on a FPGA. The reason why I am mentioning this, is because in many cases a FPGA = the actual design. With this I mean as in really the REAL design. Or in other words, there is no emulation going on anymore. The only reason why one could still use the term emulation, is because it's often hard to backward engineer the 100% original design. Although that could also happen with a clone chip (or copy)

Great video with the pro and cons. The MiSTer is certainly not for casuals due to the price, but I can say that FPGA hardware emulation which is cycle accurate has advantages over software emulation. For one, the input lag is like the actual hardware and perfect for competitive play for score or speed runs. While software emulation can do run ahead, it has its own issues such as being faster than the actual hardware plus compatibility issues plus finding the right configuration for each game. Personally, I use both hardware (FPGA) and software emulation. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses and neither is perfect. I have given up on most modern games as the rich library of games from the last 50 years is so much better and so much more compelling without NFTs, micro transactions, and incomplete, broken games with pretty graphics charging $70 (Here's looking at you: BF 2042). For most of MVG fans, we already know its about gameplay and while I love pretty graphics (don't we all) you don't notice it while playing these older, more compelling games.

I've got an idea for the next video - a detailed explanation of how FPGA differs from the traditional emulators. I've got the basic idea of this concept, but not sure if I'm right so the video might help. Thanks for your great videos

people used to joke about downloading more RAM, now with modern FPGAs you can download entire computers! Mindblown. I wonder if by recreating systems in hardware you could somehow "upgrade" them and make them more powerful, increasing the resolution in 3D consoles for example.

When these projects are completed we'll be able to preserve older systems but NOT playing games on them and that's a beautiful future for retro gaming. I'd love to be able to play my PSX games while leaving the actual console in a safe place so that I can give it to my kids when they're older. Or if need be I can sell them while they're in much better condition because they rarely get used. FPGAs deserve a new kind of Nobel Prize for what they're doing to historic technologies.

Loving my mister in an Amiga ITX case with a Sony Trinitron. I mostly just seem to play Genesis games though LoL

I feel like the nostalgia + the price make this attractive primarily for men 40 and Up.

The points about price are exactly what have kept me away from the MiSTer project this far, it’s just simply far too expensive right now.

Even though I would never being able to buy MiSTer FPGA, it's still fascinating to see the progress of replicating original retro hardware packed into a tiny machine. If MiSTer FPGA can replicate N64 core & Windows 98SE + MSDOS core with adjustable speed, sound (SoundBlaster particularly) & graphic settings, then that would be an amazing all in one retro gaming solution. A combination of 512MB RAM + IDE & SATA ports would be amazing as well.

Don't forget an oldskool CRT TV

i want a MiSTer for so long but its so expansive -.-. greate video again :)

fortunately I did way back in time and bought mine. today we have cps1,2 psx and others coming. its not cheap but for a retrogamer its the best you can have in terms of accuracy. games that have glitches in PSX runs perfectly in mister. I have a PS2 with popstarter and many games for PSX can't run there because its emulation by software, using Mister its not even comparable, needed a real PSOne to run some games so perfectly

Love this kinda stuff!! Love how the community is preserving all-the-things for us!

FPGA and emulation both have their place as complimentary ways to preserve systems.

Great roundup, really interesting, but it feel similar to the Raspberry Pi's they simply don't exist....(in stores). That makes it really hard not to go 2-click solution with a 25 € Mac Mini and Open Emu.

I know it will essentially require a new FPGA and board, but if we ever get N64 and Naomi, Mister will become a central gaming platform for me.

Personally, for myself. I would probably still get a GroovyMAME setup. Because I really only care for the arcade games and there's still not enough arcade boards that are supported on MiSTer yet. MiSTer is great though if you wanna play console games or mess with older PCs

Sooooooo mistakes were made by MVG? 😂

Digikey, Newark, Mouser, but mostly Digikey always seems to carry DE10-nano for 150$. Or you can go on intel's site and look under suppliers. That FPGA is manufactured by intel. It's an Altera Cyclone V. The FPGA itself is 50$ if someone was to mass purchase them.

Cool video I really enjoyed it

Welcome to the world of MiSTer MVG. The important thing for me is input lag and you can feel it.

I have now so many options, like original hardware / retro PC, flashcards like Everdrives, Emulation (like on my 351V) and so on that I don't really play my MiSTer so often. What I'm missing with the MiSTer is savestates and that Amiga would have less issues (especially games where you want to save). With Amiga I actually prefer WinUAE with my Laptop connected to my CRT Monitor, thanks to custom resolutions with high refresh rates even in real 320x200 and so on instead of scan doubling to. Neo Geo via MiSTer on a CRT TV is great though as I don't own a Neo Geo (yet?). Need to try the PC core and other like C64 again too as it's been a while and they had many issues before. Original hardware using original games somehow still feels best, just finished Dungeon Master Nexus on my Saturn and now I'm playing Shining Force CD on my Mega CD. Strange how even using the Everdrives on original hardware doesn't feel the same as plugging in the original games even though it's better for backing up save data.

I'll get one eventually, mostly for arcade, Neo Geo, and PC Engine.

Yes I get where you are coming from. I have 90k ROMS in my launchbox setup

I am glad you said you were wrong. Anyone who new how emu and fpga works would know fpga is far superior. Superior is an understatment. But as you said cost .....

I remember buying a bunch of Atari Jaguars at KB Toy and Hobby for $10 a piece in the late 90s.

As soon as someone works out Sega V2 and v3 cores.. I'll be buying one.. want point blank and house of the dead in All it's glory along with time crisis series as well.

I’m getting a Mr. specifically for arcade games. I grew up in the late 70s early 80s and I lived in the arcades. I wanna fully build an arcade cabinet in the next six months. The only thing stopping me is my wife’s wrath. 🤣

So this is what you've been up to this last week. Never seen anything like this myself so very interesting indeed. I presume all those games at the beginning were running on this thing? Looks very capable indeed in that case but for the money I'm not sure at all right now honestly. I think this kind of retro capable hardware is currently seeing a resurgence bringing up the demand along with the general chip shortage meaning this is not a great time to invest here much like high-end GPUs in general right now. Shame really. So much nostalgia crammed into one video. That MvC in particular looked amazing and I will also be looking forward to high-level Saturn emulation. The general array of possibilities and potential seen here is indeed staggering. Good stuff.

There are so many great video games, that have fallen victim to obscurity, just because the ability to make a penny from them has been lost due to expired copyrights. All of these games are works of art and should not be thrown into a closet of non-existence. Many talented video game programmers have put their heart and soul into making these games; do their works not deserve to be appreciated and cherished in perpetuity. Imagine if the same was done with the Mona Lisa or the statue of David. News of the development of retro gaming devises such as the MiSTer is indeed good. Thank you for the video MVG.

This is very cool, but I just don't feel compelled to wade in myself. Retroarch with run-ahead lag reduction achieves amazing results.

This is an awesome project and is doing a great job from what i see i the video. My only problem is, that i already made exactly something like this with Batocera on a dedicated minipc intel nuc with a gorgeous interface easy to scrool and a plesure to navigate for even a 5 year old, with over 2k games that work flawlessly with bluetooth controlers with all major arcade platforms up to ps1. Is all set and is small and i have lan connection to it to. Is software emulation not hardware, cost me nothing because was made from old pc i did not used, but in the end if it works....and most important is easy for a child to navigate in it and looks amazing and has game descriptions and cover artwork. Idk, i do not miss the bulky and cluncky machines or the old 386 with monochromatic duotone monitors, i miss the games.

Great showcase! I really want one now 😭

Awesome to see MVG covering this, would be interested to hear your thoughts a few months down the line of owning one. When it gets you thinking about selling your original PCBs then there must be something special about it👍🏼

I cannot imagine the hours and number of fpga's it would take to decap, read, and reassemble in HDL all the chips of an n64 but it has to be *possible*

Imagine Mister running Fightcade!

15:58 was pretty funny

I know it's probably wishful thinking and that "regular" emulators already exists but this for a ps2 and consoles of that era(gc/Xbox) would be awesome

Emulation when done correctly is close to perfect. However FPGA when done correctly is better then perfect. Also MiSTer isn't as expensive as people think. Because to get the same experience on average would cost ATLEAST 250 per console. Because to get the same quality you'd need: 1: The console (normally around 100$ or more). 2: Mod the console to output the best video signal (normally 50$ or more) 3: Need the game cartridge or flashcart (normally 50-100$ for the flashcart). 4: Providing you don't know how to mod the console. Pay someone to do it (normally about 100$). This is all ballpark estimates ofcourse. But that's being conservative. Most of these console would cost you even more then 250.

All of this is amazing, and I would get one if it wouldn't cost $1000.....

The emulator guy is back ! 💚😎

That capcom cabinet looks really nice, what’s the model or whatever

While this is impressive and I wish I had one, it's already expensive for you guys not in South America. For me this would cost probably roughly 2 whole years of my wages provided I didn't spend a dime, and that's really sad. Till this day I can't find a PS3 for sale for a non-absurd price, let alone the MiSTer... Also, that Castlevania Chronicles gameplay in the background really hits in the nostalgia, I got it as a gift for Christmas years ago (not a legitimate copy, of course) but only back in October of last year I managed to finish it, what a beautiful yet hard game.

Love MVG

What about installing the MiSTer into an ASETEK Vapochill Lightspeed XE-II and using the cooling probe to keep the SPARTAN ALTERA FPGA at a nice -130 degrees below Zero but the the surrounding board needs to be coated in Corning fluid to keep moisture away from the FPGA so that it doesn't short out.

Damn, people selling the DE-10 Nano for that much now? Glad I finally bought it a year ago for retail.

An FPGA based system like that blows my mind that you can get it for less than $400

Unfortunately (or fortunately?) this is the future as the original hardware decays into dust. It's the only way to conserve those old gems of games and applications.

I hope I'll be able to hook up a telephone to use as the Jaguar's controller.

I admire the technical stuff but I still don’t understand what makes this better than software emulation to the end user. The JAMMA stuff is awesome, I see that being a great hook if you have a cab but the rest?

Hey mate who in Australia sells these? Thanks for your time and work!

wow this is pretty insane

My one question is can you use a coin slot system with the mister for arcades like the retropie? I bought the Retrotink4k for my retro collection but I'm looking into building a arcade cabinet in the future.

FPGA is the ideal technique for emulation in my opinion. Software emulation relies on a lot of tricks to achieve a similar result, but in practice cannot be so perfect, not just because of the input lag.

TAKE MY MONEY, This is amazing, Im gonna have take out my piggy bank on this one, wheres the hammer at?

Sounds amazing. But the price needs to drop. With a great gaming pc I’ve invested thousands on, the software emulators will work for now. Hopefully this drops in price at some point so us casual retro folks can jump in.

In ten years we will hardware emulate mister

Can we get the list of games you showed throughout the video? I don’t recognize many of them.

I have so many options for retro gaming. My PC to start, an OG Xbox, Nintendo Wii, PSP and a Mini Ace PC. I can play every retro game I've ever wanted and these are on devices I already had or got for free. So great hardware but the price is just too much.