DMJC wrote on 2023-10-07, 11:45:

I own a MiSTer, I bought it so I could play Wing Commander: Privateer without having to have a bulky retro PC setup. I have a lo […]
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I own a MiSTer, I bought it so I could play Wing Commander: Privateer without having to have a bulky retro PC setup. I have a lot of thoughts regarding it:
AO486 Core:
Pros:
- Runs Privateer Perfectly
- Good sound blaster emulation.
- Wing Commander 1/2 work great
- Strike Commander/Hocus Pocus/Wacky Wheels/Syndicate all work perfectly.
- Anything you need a 386 for just get a MiSTer.
- FreeDOS is a gem on this thing, it runs most of the DOS games and you can run drive images of at least 8GB Fat32 (tested by me)
- Drive image swapping/ISO support is awesome. Retro PC without the headaches.

Cons:
- Little underpowered for WC 3/4 (3D Space flight performance isn't there in SVGA, playable in VGA but not ideal)
- Privateer 2 crashes ingame due to no FPU.
- 486+ it gets dodgy.
- Avoid Windows 98SE it boots but it's not worth it
- SDCard Write performance is awful (there are network mount workarounds and you can pre-load a card fast on a modern PC).

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Overall:
Worth the money, I would buy it again, however I would caution people wanting to use it for the AO486 core. PC Emulation has challenges on MiSTer (no FPU and no Pentum 1 support). There is no perfect solution for X86 retro gaming, but a MiSTer can help you get rid of 386/486 era hardware. I would recommend Retro Gamers have a MiSTer, a Pentium 2/3 era Voodoo2+ machine and a modern gaming PC, old 386/486/XT hardware is no longer needed with a MiSTer.

I don't see you mentioning MT32-Pi integration. If you don't have one, it can really make some DOS games of that era shine. The MiSTer itself can run smaller Soundfonts through FluidSynth directly. But if you are going back to 386, MT32 is much more common than General MIDI.

Almost all of the newer PC-alike console generations (including PS2, Xbox1, and anything newer) would be arguably pointless to have on FPGA.

The architectures don't suit. The complex syncs of earlier generations, replicated so well in FPGA capabilities, have been supplanted in later console generations by modern PC-like (or even "actual PC" in some cases) architectures, for which the wonders of FPGA do little or nothing that existing software emulators couldn't do just as well, if not better, on any normal PC.

Dreamcast is my only lament (that MiSTer can't handle it), but I won't be uprooting the world over that.

Shreddoc wrote on 2023-10-07, 21:16:

Almost all of the newer PC-alike console generations (including PS2, Xbox1, and anything newer) would be arguably pointless to have on FPGA.

The architectures don't suit. The complex syncs of earlier generations, replicated so well in FPGA capabilities, have been supplanted in later console generations by modern PC-like (or even "actual PC" in some cases) architectures, for which the wonders of FPGA do little or nothing that existing software emulators couldn't do just as well, if not better, on any normal PC.

Dreamcast is my only lament (that MiSTer can't handle it), but I won't be uprooting the world over that.

Is emulation able to deliver perfect frametimes? Because most of the time it feels very choppy even if the framerate is rock solid 60fps... Otherwise, I think it will still be necessary to have those systems under Fpga. Cheers

I’m planning on getting a MISTer for myself for c64 / Amiga and Arcade machines emulation. Rumors are zero frameskip provided your monitor can handle the input hz (50 / 60 respectively)

Fpgas are just emulation.

midicollector wrote on 2024-03-29, 05:48:

Fpgas are just emulation.

Emulation is one of the most exciting and advanced areas of computing and hacking, so "just" is quite a stretch.

You, in another thread today, about the PicoGUS : Every time you update this, I get more and more excited to buy one! This is seriously one of the best retro products of all time.

And I agree. But guess what? The PicoGUS is also "just emulation". So it seems that you are quite passionately in favour of this "just emulation", after all! 😀

For what it's worth, the MiSTER Pi is regularly available these days, so the cost of a complete MiSTer FPGA setup is now only ~$200 USD. At that price, I think it's a great deal.

Once it's set up correctly, it provides a convenient way of playing many old games across multiple consoles and arcade/computer systems, all in one small device. I find that be a bigger benefit than even the low latency or the high emulation accuracy. I love being able to just turn on the MiSTer and fire up one of thousands of old games in seconds.

I was impressed by the ao486 core. The REMOVED makes it super easy to get DOS games up and running, as long as they're a part of the collection. The core does chug on some more-demanding games, so they're not all super playable. For example, Command & Conquer: Red Alert is pretty laggy. Most of the games I've tried play smoothly, however - namely Warcraft II and the Commander Keen series. There are also some Windows 3.1 games available for the core, but performance may be an issue with them as well. I tried SimTower and it was too slow to be a great experience.

interflux wrote on 2024-12-26, 19:29:

I was impressed by the ao486 core. The REMOVED makes it super easy to get DOS games up and running, as long as they're a part of the collection. The core does chug on some more-demanding games, so they're not all super playable. For example, Command & Conquer: Red Alert is pretty laggy. Most of the games I've tried play smoothly, however - namely Warcraft II and the Commander Keen series. There are also some Windows 3.1 games available for the core, but performance may be an issue with them as well. I tried SimTower and it was too slow to be a great experience.

ao486 maxes out around the speed of a 486SX 25Mhz. But it's speed adjustments, support for Sound Blaster, Adlib and MIDI with special support for MT32Pi makes it a great machine for 286 and 386 software which can be difficult to get just right on faster machines. There's also an XT core being developed which will hopefully slot in at the low end to resolve all those 4.77Mhz cycle accurate dependent games.

Other computer cores are also fun to play with. I'm very appreciative of the community coming up game packs to let games just auto boot and play like a console. It makes exploring various systems much easier without needing to learning the machine inside and out to get all the settings correct to make games run.