Nintendo 64

[gilded whale]

Eat my rat pizza and rejoice

Virtual boy has a solid 3 games on it

[gritty basalt]

Does the rat pizza have pepperoni on it?

[gilded whale]

Pupperoni

Hope thats good enough

[gritty basalt]

Close enough. Gimme.

[gilded whale]

Our pizza is made out of old mascots

The punky skunk special is on now

[gritty basalt]

Is Bugs Bunny an optional gluten-free ingredient?

[gilded whale]

Ain’t I a stinker?

[gritty basalt]

Yeah, I didn't think of that. Nobody wants a stinky pizza.

[gilded whale]

Yeah you get Bugs when you get the Big Chungus

[gritty basalt]

As long as there's no roaches, I'll eat ze Bugs and I'll be happy

[gilded whale]

Rejoice children and drink my rat milk

[thorn quiver]

Tables are wiped and the rats are newly fumigated

[gilded whale]

The exterminator only makes me stronger

[gritty basalt]

2% or 1% reduced fat rat milk?

[gilded whale]

No matter how many times you call the health board I will be back

[gilded whale]

Well it’s tit milk, so… 100% fat?

Just globs

[gritty basalt]

Whole titties are the best kind, as is the milk they produce. Just shut up and take all my money!

[gilded whale]

I sure do love fpga

[thorn quiver]

Nintendo 64

[gilded whale]

Get N my tits or get out

I have failed the n64 gods

[gritty basalt]

Why must you fail them so often?

Just one failure is one too many. Only perfection will be tolerated in 64-bit-land.

Anyway, I feel like I have successfully lost 2 solid IQ points engaging in this conversation. I can now safely say that I had a productive Wednesday today!

[weary palm]

It would be an amazing achievement, for sure. And to have the exact blueprint of a derivative of a immensely popular machine of the early 00s is very valuable, for future gamers and historians. 🙂 I hope it happens, even though I probably won't use it. Perhaps it's already possible on the beefiest of FPGA's, but for it to be at a more reasonable price point we'll have to wait. And we would probably need a mid-size team to pull it off. I hope this technology (or it's successors) continues to gain popularity the foreseeable future.

[fleet glacier]

Rev 0 or Rev A is the same thing. Just different numbering used, 0-9 or A-Z.

[blissful plaza]

Rev 1 is Rev A.

Initial release is without number or letter.

[weary palm]

En svensk

[fleet glacier]

Japp. Så svensk som man kan bli 🇸🇪

[thorn quiver]

Är vi fler nu?

[atomic stratus]

oh for sure, it’s just that 6th gen will take more powerful fpgas whereas things like what I mentioned could still come to MiSTer

[storm vessel]

Nej!

[spare meadow]

Don´t worry about it. Its never late for some RE 2. 😀 Here´s the file. When you load it, look for the 2 last save lines.

[untold dragon]

Do high-end FPGAs even have enough resources to implement the logic of these console? I am under the impression that a breakthrough in FPGA design would have to happen before these would be even possible.

[atomic stratus]

@untold dragon as far as I understood it, I think you might be right esepcially when it comes to things like Gamecube/X-Box/PS2. The only one I understood as being technically possible with already existing more powerful FPGAs is Dreamcast and maybe DS/PSP

[vast delta]

FPGAs are light years ahead of what we have in the DE10-Nano.... the problem is the pricing right now. but that will of course come down with time

there are FPGAs with over a million logic elements

[plush summit]

The main problem is finding a board that's available and cost effective

[vast delta]

bingo

so it's not really a breakthrough in FPGA design we're looking for

its commoditization is the real issue

[mossy vector]

Why does this keep getting discussed over and over in N64?

[atomic stratus]

@mossy vector probably because it’s a core that pushes the limits so it gets people thinking what else can be possible

but yeah not really the right spot for it

[vast delta]

i guess people are really hungry for a new fpga that would remove the obstacles for which robert had to create shortcuts to

thus having a more accurate N64, even though what we have already is pretty much perfect, and in many ways better than original hardware

[plush summit]

There's already people working on an FPGA console, but from the looks of it, there isn't much traction to it

Making something of that scale isn't a 6-month to a year process

[vast delta]

yes

Replay2 you mean?

[plush summit]

Oh damn, I forgot about Replay2 lol

I'm just waiting on what 8Bitdo is doing controller wise, I rather have more N64 controller options than FPGAs

[vast delta]

amen

i can't wait for a great stick option

consistently contemplate creating my own, by modifying some stick with good mechanical design but poor electronics design

[wanton sun]

There have been several attempts, but so far not many ever have really seen the light of day.
People underestimate the amount of work it takes. It's NOT just creating a board with a good FPGA and infrastructure (CPU, Memory, A/V out, ...), it's bringing a framework together that works.
MiST did some incredible job here and Sorg to bring this over.
To make this clear: this is an outstanding achievement that can only done be done by people who really know several worlds: from board design over CPU/Linux to FPGA design and other skills.
I work in this whole FPGA, electronics and software area for 15 years now and i haven't seen a single person that would be able to do this in this scale and with that drive.
So to be honest: i don't expect a step here fast.

Also it will not be easier in future with technology getting faster and more complex, e.g. 4k HDMI, faster memories, ... and with existing large community you would need to motivate to switch over. Very hard task for anyone who wants to tackle it

[vast delta]

yes, we completely gloss over the framework

we are truly blessed by having such talented people dedicate their free time towards such a niche product. it is very much a perfect storm

[wanton sun]

A perfect example for me is the pocket: the userbase is massive and it allows for relativly easy porting of cores due to using the same FPGA family. Still, how many cores have been ported now? Let alone how many new developments have been made with it as first target?

Now try to beat this with your hobby project: good luck!

[cerulean elk]

massive and grumpy haha...Pocket commenters just hate everything

[plush summit]

From the looks of it, we'll have a new wave of MiSTer users coming soon, I want them to go nuts on the N64 core

[untold dragon]

That was definitely my reason for buying one. I wanted to be able to play N64 on my crt, but I don't have the actual hardware.

Plus I do a bunch of work with FPGAs, so I have an affinity for them 😛

[lament escarp]

I didn't get a pocket because you told me not to.

[cerulean elk]

I didn’t tell you not to did I? Lol

Only think I think I said “meh” on hardware wise in the last year was the QMTECH CLONE

[lament escarp]

Meh is pretty much not to. 😅

[cerulean elk]

Haha I never outright say don’t get something. My review scale goes from positive to “not for me, maybe for you”

If I receive something I outright hate I won’t make the video. I don’t have the room for negative reviews

[eternal ravine]

Y u hate SEGA Pico Beena

[lament escarp]

So that's why you never made a video about my pokemon romhack.

[chrome quest]

Just thinking of odd N64 related tech for a dream SNAC video, has anyone worked out a solution to get N64 cart saves to work on the core yet? Never could get it to work myself

[vast delta]

do you mean creating a SNAC accessory to physically read it from the cart or simply converting a previously dumped save to a mister-readable format?

[chrome quest]

The save conversion only

There is this site; https://savefileconverter.com/#/mister Last I checked N64 didn't work yet though. Wonder who runs that site

[vast delta]

try this

https://savefileconverter.com/#/flash-carts

[chrome quest]

I wonder if anyone has had success going into the attempt. One of many problems is trying to figure out what differences there could be between dumping methods, versus say a project 64 save. If anyone knew a working pathway that would be a start.
If not, I'll eventually trial and error a way (hopefully)

[wanton sun]

I don't see why saves should not work. Most likely it's a big/little endian swap that is needed or some useless header from the dump tool that must be cut off

[chrome quest]

Indeed. I'll have a look myself, maybe make a fresh MiSTer save and a few emulator saves and compare from there

[vapid hawk]

are there any major cores still not ported to pocket?

[solemn marlin]

I can't believe you doxxed me and told me to kill myself in your video just because I like rage racer

[cerulean elk]

🤣

Sounds like me

[solemn marlin]

HelloandwelcomebacktovideogameesotericaandtodayIwouldlikeallmyviewerstoharassthisguy

[little socket]

sounds like him

[solemn marlin]

I had ridge racer revolution growing up so I was honestly surprised by the fact that it can be good with ridge racer 4, not played enough rage racer to get it

You're right that it's vertical, it makes me feel ill going up and down like a rollercoaster

[weary palm]

@grizzled stratus, @unkempt vortex and I think @lean spruce

[unkempt vortex]

The fellowship of the 64

[mortal panther]

One framework to rule them all.

[thorn quiver]

Ett ramavtal

[manic basin]

Depends on what you mean by major. MegaCD, 32X, a whole host of computer cores, anything too big for sure, a few arcades I think - but I couldn't tell you which ones off the top of my head, NGCD, a bunch of old obscure consoles (nobody is exactly asking for them) like Fairchild...lots of stuff like that. But for 'could actually maybe be ported' ... I feel from what I've seen that 32X and MegaCD may not be impossible and might be the biggest fish in the console side. Again, not a ton of people want them. There's no hope for PSX/N64/Sat most likely. Love to be proven wrong on that, but....

Some cores still need work, too. Last I checked the IremM92 pocket core was sloooow... In the Hunt was 30-50% slower in a few places, in example. TGCD is way better than it was, but it's still not at MiSTer quality.

I haven't checked Irem in a while though. But I know TGCD just had that one update 5ish months ago and still had a ton of issues.

Surely part of this is that there hasn't been a firmware update since March.

[elfin relic]

Pocket had like a flurry of activity and then it sort of died off with a bunch of half finished ports and even the "spirtualized" cores have decayed enough someone came around and started improving their own GB/C and GBA core ports

[manic basin]

Yeah

So many 'waiting for X promised feature from Analogue' tweets from a year ago....

😦

[vapid hawk]

cheers for writing that all out, that's a shame about the incomplete ones

[manic basin]

Fingers crossed (mainly because of that D pad, amirite! Zing!) that they'll get sorted. Though...if the Taki portable is even KINDA good, I'm jumping ship.

[gilded whale]

In a post mister handheld world who would ever want a pocket? (assuming it the mister handheld lives up to hype)

[vapid hawk]

i'd love a taki portable because that would mean resident evil which is basically the dream 😄

[manic basin]

Exactly!

[vapid hawk]

depends how much it costs and if the screen is good tho

[manic basin]

I want to be able to throw Conker across the room. Don't we all....

[vapid hawk]

the pocket screen is kind of incredible

[manic basin]

It's really nice.

[gilded whale]

I want to play plumbers don’t wear ties… on the bus

[manic basin]

Though, the idea of a GBA formfactor is really nicer.

[gilded whale]

And here I was hoping that he’d mimic the r-zone form factor

[vapid hawk]

i'm hoping its heavily inspired by the greatest gaming portable of all time

the nokia n-guage

[gilded whale]

Full qwerty keyboard and you have to hold it sideways to hear it

[vapid hawk]

and a like, 4:5 screen

[gilded whale]

Vertical resolution

This can be the form factor for the portable non handheld design

[latent dagger]

oooo, the VideoNow

[manic basin]

Can't we just get a 'VMU taped onto an N64 controller" formfactor?

[jolly turret]

I think the largest selling point will still be the combination of the screen and filter presets.

[jolly turret]

Are there any meaningful differences between the Analogue cores and the ported cores? If so I might have to consider taking the flash cart and adapters route.

[elfin relic]

depends on which core you're talking about I guess, but I'm not really sure. I haven't used my pocket seriously in a while and just sort of keep up with the news

[vast delta]

The Pocket was somewhat of a FOMO purchase for me. I don't regret it, but now I realize I did not really have a whole lot of use for it

I just wish Taki's handheld has a non-OLED version

[latent dagger]

might not happen.

it would result in a worse visual experience and shorter battery life.
battery life being probably the biggest concern.

OLED is far more battery efficient with being able to have each pixel turn off when it's black.

[lament escarp]

I couldn't get one so I modded a few gameboys for the money

[vast delta]

I understand. I just hate pentile displays and Mura. I'm not too worried about burn-in, but Mura gets on my nerves.

I love old sports games. In those, OLEDs and their lack of uniformity combined with the Mura graininess are especially terrible. I know the higher contrast ratio and higher brightness are two key metrics for image quality, but so should uniformity be

[jolly turret]

How does Mura behave when using crt or lcd type screen filters? Does it do anything to mask or reduce the appearance of it? I never had an OLED screen myself so I don't even know how sensitive I would be to noticing it.

[karmic sequoia]

what manner of stuff was there that never materialized?

the biggest concrete benefit of the Pocket vs. a hypothetical handheld mister is the cart support really

[manic basin]

I believe DMA updates were what didn't get delivered (Mazamars312 had mentioned it's part of the issues he's seeing with TG16 CD and some of the Amiga stuff).

[manic basin]

Yeah, there are two different camps. The 'play all the things' camp and the 'play MY things like I remember' camp. Well, there are about 30 different camps, but that's a fairly decent divider for the cart slot concern. If pocket works for you, it's an excellent system. I really love mine. Now that the NGPC core is mostly working, though, I'm down to zero concern for carts again. But it's truly amazing if that's your primary use case for sure.

[karmic sequoia]

yeah like i don't regret grabbing one given the form factor as basically a high-quality GBA with some bonus features but i do definitely wish Analogue would get more on the ball with this stuff

[elfin relic]

they're too busy creating 3d renders of the next product that won't launch on time

[manic basin]

Or WILL launch on time. With 15 units, then nothing for 8 months.

[elfin relic]

and after those 8 months they'll release new colorways that ship now while your preorder still hasn't

[manic basin]

Too real

[stone pilot]

Sold Out.

[manic basin]

HAH

[gritty basalt]

Amen to all that!

[gritty basalt]

Ah, okay. Thanks!

[gritty basalt]

For sure. I'm just making the prediction that whatever budget-friendly FPGA that we'd need for stable 6th Gen console emulation might actually become available to us sooner than, say, five to seven years from now, probably because there's some people out there with enough money and engineering know-how who really wants to make FPGA cores on these systems because they're huge lovers of said systems, or that someone simply wants to show off some programming/engineering skills of theirs. There's one thing that I've learned over the course of my life to never underestimate, and that's the sheer lengths that super nerds will go to preserve the things they like.

[gritty basalt]

Thanks!

[gritty basalt]

Alright, I just got done testing the save file on both the turbo core and the regular core. I made two separate video files showing off gameplay for each core (forgive the motion of the camera and less-than-stellar quality, since I was recording off my phone and trying to play the game one-handed, so holding the camera steady wasn't an option for me).

The first video in this message is footage of me playing the file on the Turbo core. I didn't see any visual glitches occur during this test. The regular core, on the other hand...

[gritty basalt]

... is where I encountered the same visual glitches you showed off. Both the large elevator doors and the boss itself would glitch out every time I shot at the boss with the magnum, at least at first. As you can see in the footage, the glitch seems to mostly stop shortly after the boss transforms. I stopped recording the video and went to finish the boss off, so unfortunately I couldn't capture it on video, but I did notice that the boss would glitch out a couple of times after shooting it even while the elevator doors weren't visible (as in I was away from them), and it was around the time I noticed this detail that I ended up killing the boss.

So yeah, on the regular core, it seems that there's some visual glitches present for this particular boss, along with some noticeable slowdown, whereas on the turbo core none of these issues are present. I'll open up a page for this on GitHub.

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/N64_MiSTer/issues/57

And done

[vast delta]

Mura looks like you screen is all greassd up, but you can't clean it. It's especially noticeable in dim environments. But it's also a lottery, and some screens can be quite good

My old OLED Vitas looked absolutely awful. I had 3 throughout that gen. The slim Vita with the LCD was so much better

[neat sierra]

TIL what Mura means

[elfin relic]

斑

[vapid hawk]

it's quite distracting on the PSVR2 sometimes

[polar raft]

if you say it twice, it means something quite different 😏

[elfin relic]

群々

[spare meadow]

Thank you for looking at it! Whats the date of build you used? Since the Turbo core from 03/2024 works, when I get home I will to try the previous vanilla build (03/2024 if I am not mistaken) to see if I got the same results.

[solemn marlin]

Half of my time here is just googling terms and hardware I never knew existed

[neat sierra]

Yeah I follow this stuff pretty closely and still get surprised with crap I’ve never seen

[gritty basalt]

For the regular core, it's the most recent core on Update_All. For the Turbo, it's the most current build that's currently available.

[vapid moat]

So which is more recommended/preferable now, Pre-Patched Conker, or Core-patched?

[daring meteor]

Conker needs no patches

[marble cargo]

The latest official build fixed a bug that caused Conker's Bad Fur Day to crash, so you don't need the patch anymore.

[vapid moat]

Huh, I remember that Conker needed more patches than that - guess I'll update

[bitter fjord]

Hi, Does anyone know where to find the autopatcher build for the n64 core?

[rich warren]

https://discord.com/channels/647909397477195803/737506076806611064

[bitter fjord]

isn't that a MiSTer main binary though? Isn't there an actual core build for this? How does it work?

[vast delta]

the HPS is patching the rom on-the-fly

[rich warren]

no new core - it's just the main binary. Rename the file something like 'MiSTer_n64_autopatch' and copy the file over to /fat with the other files.
add this to your .ini file at the bottom
[n64]
main=MiSTer_n64_autopatch

[vast delta]

oh dang, thanks for the tip @rich warren

i was going to rock it as the bootable mister binary

[bitter fjord]

that's what I did

[rich warren]

should be stable enough to do that, but if your worried about messing up the MiSTer it's an option. Of course then you'd have to remove the .ini setting once it's incorporated into the stable release

[bitter fjord]

are there any games that still aren't playable once patches are applied?

[weary perch]

depends on your definition of playable

probably best to check my spreadsheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HiL-vHgpL5Wj0iv88EGtMYcmcf9sml35W3sQgRPz2wU/edit?usp=sharing

DDR Disney Dancing Museum is kinda unplayable because the audio is offset from the video

some games you need to use turbo, or a regional variant

[compact depot]

Has N64 autopatch been merged to main?

[atomic stratus]

whoah, I didn’t know this was a thing! That’s awesome for unstable MiSTer mains that are used for very specific purposes 🤯

[rich warren]

certainly handy for Groovy MiSTer! That core will always need it's own custom MiSTer main

[compact depot]

WTF is groovy MiSTer?

[rich warren]

https://github.com/psakhis/Groovy_MiSTer

stream your PC video to your MiSTer for CRT use

uses a network connection to basically turn your MiSTer into an external analog video device

here's a channel
https://discord.com/channels/647909397477195803/1212527493169414266

Groovy is taken from Groovy MAME, which integrates with Groovy MiSTer so you can use a controller plugged into your MiSTer on your PC MAME games. There is also a MiSTer Cast application to stream your desktop in 480i or 240p. Good for playing newer games or watching DVD/VHS rips on a CRT from your PC

[solemn marlin]

I'd do this if my laptop gpu could handle it, sadly it can't

Really seems the way to go for crt-pc 240p/480i stuff. I wonder how well it works with 86box, I cant test because of the laptop situation

[rich warren]

From what I've seen it's more bound to your cpu and network adapter. Should work great with 86box. I've used it with Dreamcast, Dolphin and modern retro games

[atomic stratus]

GroovyMiSTer seems awesome. I really need to get my CRT table set back up and try some stuff on the PVM

[solemn marlin]

I did one of those hardware tests for which games I should be able to run (not sure how accurate it is) and I placed in the 4 worst percent, specifically saying how out of date my gpu was. But yea, I don't know what makes it stutter so bad for me, might be the cpu as that is also fairly old. I did try a bunch of settings and both the laptop and mister was wired to the network. My friend could get it to work borrowing my mister and the same settings

A good groovymister setup would probably complete my needs for gaming tbh

[rich warren]

Yeah for CRT users for anything MiSTer can't handle itself. Being able to do 480i and 240p is a huge deal

Good for extreme n64 romhacks 😅

[solemn marlin]

Yea obviously the crt is a part of this equation, that's why I wanted mister to begin with. Would love seeing some 86box+groovymister+crt content, if there are any downsides

[compact depot]

This is awesome

[neat sierra]

Yeah it’s super cool @quick otter made a great thing. And paired with Shane Lynchs Mistercast you can get up to more side shenanigans

[weary palm]

Hey guys

Do You appreciate me? </weird-question-of-the-day>

[lament escarp]

Short answer: yes. Long answer: hell yeah boy.

[vapid hawk]

for sure, congrats on the merge btw

[weary palm]

It's not my first, but thanks 🙂

[lament escarp]

Wow so freddo gets a heart and I do not.

[weary palm]

@lament escarp You greedy bastard. I missed your comment. K?

[lament escarp]

I even pinged you to make sure the validation reaches you!

[weary palm]

I'm sorry. Please come to the castle, I've baked a cake for you. AM I NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU??

/me throws rolling pin

[lament escarp]

CHEESE CAKE

[weary palm]

😭 leaves and slams door behind me

[vapid hawk]

sneaks is and eats the cake

[solemn marlin]

Nintendo 64

[thorn quiver]

I had the Nintendo 16 but never the 64

I suppose at some point I did have four of them, but it's not the same.

[solemn marlin]

I had all sixtyfour, now they're all gone

[weary palm]

Nintendo 32 = GameCube?

[thorn quiver]

No that's the 128

[weary palm]

Hm, but it had a 32 bit processor

[thorn quiver]

Stop making sense

[solemn marlin]

It's a deep sickness to pretend that the 64 ever stood for something tangible

[weary palm]

Nintendo Switch = Nintendo 512. I hope we get the 1024 soon.

I don't think the 64-bitness of the Nintendo 64 helped it particulary. Those opcodes are seldom used, I've heard.

Perhaps today, with better compilers

[solemn marlin]

My research into the matter is just that kaze video and it kind of is 64 if the floating point processor is used in a specific way which ultimately just leaves me thinking that it's marketing, unless they were seriously banking on kids getting hyped about register size

[wanton sun]

64bit codes are used quiet a bit, especially for floating point. 64bit addressing is not used in any official game, which makes sense with less than 4 gbyte available 🙂

Also the data path is completly 64bit: all memory operations are in 64bit chunks and RDp commands are 64bit wide, so the RDP can get information in twice as fast as e.g. PSX

(however, that only works from RAM or RSP, because the CPu interface to the RCP chip is only 32bit....)

[solemn marlin]

And who can honestly call it 64bit if that's the case hm?
Clearly the next step of the turbo core is to make it true 64bit

[wanton sun]

the core in fact is using 64bit there instead of 32. This does help a bit with keeping the latency constraint: if the scaler occupies the DDR3 for too long, the CPU wins back some cycles by reading 64bit in at once. If the memory access is fast enough, i add some sleep cycles to get back the correct timing

[weary palm]

Did anything with this architecture ever used anything close to gigabytes?

[wanton sun]

(you can also get back the sleep cycles by using the debug feature fast ram access, but the effect is small)

[wanton sun]

no idea. There is a not-stripped down version of this CPU that might be used in high end systems of that time

[solemn marlin]

It's cool that you took a look at what was needed for the core to work and figured that the n64 must become 64bit, are you un-sixtyfouring it if you make it for a more advanced fpga?

[weary palm]

we should rename turbo to iQue, because of it's higher performance. j/k

[wanton sun]

if we ever get a future FPGA board with dedicated DDR3/4/5 only for the core, the ram speed would fly off

don't have to think about any more optimizations then, this alone will speed up so much, that anything above will likely result in crashes

[weary palm]

The connectors on the board is too slow for this, right?

[wanton sun]

Noone has tried, but it's very likely

[weary palm]

are those memories serial with several channels?

perhaps we should talk to one of those DE-10 nano clone people. 😉

[wanton sun]

no, the memory itself has only one data and address bus

and you cannot just add one to the cyclone 5, because it has no second built in controller for it

[weary palm]

Ah, it has dedicated hardware for it. makes sense, the fpga isn't fast enough, i would assume

[wanton sun]

you cannot write a ddr3/4 controller with common FPGA pins and vhdl/verilog....well maybe, but it would be really bad. Good ones are typically hard built into the silicon unless you have a very fast FPGA

[weary palm]

lets hope the next generation of misters have more buses then. if we ever get such a thing.

[solemn marlin]

I'd love a nintendo 64000... I like hearing how much you could speed it up but I also don't because I can't have it

[weary palm]

this shared memory approach means unpredictable timing issues, right?

[solemn marlin]

I know the de10 nano was for educational (?) puposes and specifically chosen because it fit the project but it'd be a dream if they were actively talking with core devs for a future board, give you all you need

[weary palm]

Hypothetically speaking: It wouldn't help in any way to remove linux out of the question and run mister "bare metal"? i'm not saying it's anything close to a good idea or even possible... 😅

[turbid warren]

you need some kind of operating system to operate the systems

[weary palm]

yeah, true. usb stack and such? can a boot be ran without the arm with jtag or something?

dumb question, perhaps

[junior pine]

Appart from USB, Linux provides filesystem access, on-the-fly decompression, etc.
I for one hope it never goes away!

You clearly don't know what a pain the the ass FPGA boards were before the FPGA+Linux alliance 🙂

[weary palm]

if this was possible perhaps the de-10 nano could be controlled by a cpu that's connected to one of the buses. nah. just talking nonsense.

[weary palm]

Yes, but only a little bit. We make a few project in school back in the early 00's

[junior pine]

That happened, indeed. Microcontrollers and soft-CPUs were used before Linux.

Look at the original Minimig project to get an idea of how things were before Linux

[weary palm]

A Spartan I think

[junior pine]

A real pain, I tell you. You don't quite understand what an advantage Linux is here 😄 I don't miss those times at all..

[junior pine]

Spartan was the FPGA family

[thorn quiver]

THIS IS ALTERA

[junior pine]

There was also the Altera DE-1, which was the first FPGA I had, back in 2008 or so. It had a Minimig port, the OCM core was ported and also the Atari 800 port.
Soft-CPUs had to be implemented to access the filesystem, draw the UI, etc. It was a pain for developers but also for users because SD card access wasn't very compatible. I won't be caught dead using an FPGA like that again for fun.

It looked like the future back then. My friends didn't quite understand my FPGA fever...

[weary palm]

I don't know the name of the devboard. It was a pure FPGA anyway, no SoC.

[junior pine]

It behaved like a SOC, so to say, because the CPU was implemented in the FPGA

I mean, the helper CPU that draw the UI, accessed the FS, etc

[weary palm]

We had to write HDL to get anything out of the VGA port on it 😛

[junior pine]

as @turbid warren said, you need something to operate the system 😄

[thorn quiver]

That's the fing about fpgas

They need a starter motor

[junior pine]

Ahh.. you were talking about your school projects. Sorry, I misunderstood you

[weary palm]

sync signals, vblank, hblank. row buffer.

yes, sorry if i wasn't to clear on that point.

It had flash, at least!

so it remember the netlist, so to say

[wanton sun]

in theory you could crash the linux after loading the game, turn off the scaler, use SNAC as controller and only analog out.
But then, you could also use a real n64. Well, that one could at least save...

[thorn quiver]

I like that approach. Burn the bridge

[magic girder]

Saves?! You modern gamers. I remember when saving meant just leaving the console on overnight

[weary palm]

nah, I'm joking. just chitchatting. xD

[magic girder]

I feel like you probably made the right decision 😉

probably

[weary palm]

has anyone heard from Kevtris lately? perhaps i shouldn't ask, but i wonder how that Analogue 3D is going.

[junior pine]

By crashing the Linux system it's not possible to write saves to SD card.. interesting approach anyway 😄

[weary palm]

if you crash linux, would the n64 core still output graphics and sound through the analog connectors? i would assume no

[wanton sun]

yes, analog only

[weary palm]

I think I've managed to do that actually. I couldn't open the menu anymore or control anything for that matter...

[junior pine]

There's another.. server or channel or whatever they are named, here in Discord, where he talks sometimes. No much. It's called FPGAGaming.
I guess the Analogue 3D isn't such a great project after what we have on the MiSTer thanks to sir Robert here.

[wanton sun]

It's more or less assumed the 3D is using the core from mazamars

[weary palm]

we'll never know, haha

[junior pine]

Mazamars did an N64 core? Never heard of that before! /me goes to google...

[magic girder]

I didn’t know that either

[wanton sun]

https://www.ultrafp64.com/

[weary palm]

Yeah, I know. I have it in my servers list. I just didn't think of using it, or perhaps I'm trying to avoid it. xD

Ah, that one. That would explain why they haven't released any progress to the public

like videos and such

[wanton sun]

He is using a Nexys Video board there, which has a FPGA about 50% faster than our Cyclone 5 and with dedicated DDR3. I used it for the DS development, nice board. Stock price is 600$ however (got mine used for 150)

[weary palm]

just silence

[junior pine]

Ah, seems to be a closed core. At least, since Mazamars is behind it, he will fix the bugs when the Analogue 3D is released and people starts reporting them. Analogue is famous for leaving the users with half-baked cores on their closed FPGA systems.

[weary palm]

Did you stop developing your DS core when you figured out that it never would fit the Cyclone V?

[junior pine]

I don't think it will have such an incredible community as the MiSTer N64 core has, anyway 🙂

[weary palm]

not a chance

open source baby

tinker heaven

[thorn quiver]

Nintendo 4 and 60

[weary palm]

tree fiddy

raise your hand if you got the reference

[junior pine]

Yep. I've learned not to play for anything without an opensource community behind, been left in the dust too many times already. For me, it's opensource or nothing.

[thorn quiver]

Yes south park

[wanton sun]

i stopped because the nexys video had no space left for 3D and debugging tools at the same time

and yes, it would have never worked on the de10-nano also

[weary palm]

Ah, shame 🙂 I love watching your little sneak peaks on youtube

[magic girder]

I feel like if it weren’t for the PSX core, I probably wouldn’t have bought a MiSTer. I like the older gens, but probably not enough that I would have paid for an FPGA board.
The fact that the N64 and Saturn cores are also here is really a dream come true, as this is my favourite gen by a long way

[weary palm]

I bought one as soon as SRG320 showed of his SNES core.

[junior pine]

I got the MiSTer when PSX, Saturn and N64 on FPGA were pure sci-fi, and I can tell you it was worth it since day 1: SNES, PCE, MegaDrive... ohh man, those alone make the MiSTer worth every penny

[weary palm]

I knew it was going to be good. I was actually the one that made the MiSTer team aware of that project. They would've found it anyway, but still.

[junior pine]

I have come to adore the MiSTer like a technological present from electronic Gods, it's the gaming history I care about condensated on a small metallic box of pleasure, much like that thing in Hellraiser 😄

[weary palm]

I remember the news. Nice to have a small miniscule part of that history lol. https://www.retrorgb.com/new-snes-fpga-appears-out-of-nowhere.html

[magic girder]

It wasn’t even a MiSTer core originally? 🤯

[neat sierra]

“Pain and pleasure, indivisible”

[weary palm]

nah. but it was ported very quickly

i'm not even sure srg knew about mister

[junior pine]

I also remember there was someone bragging about his unreleased SNES core on the Nesdev forums. At some point, he asked for money to release it, but them came SRG320's core and the Nesdev core was forgotten immediately 😄

[magic girder]

I had always assumed srg320 was one of the kind of “founder” members

If that makes sense

I should read up on my history

[junior pine]

https://forums.nesdev.org/viewtopic.php?t=15143&sid=84a221af3b51b7b1f8b0ca7328bc8e71

[weary palm]

Haha, yes. I remember that.

[mortal panther]

I had forgotten all about that.

Wow

[solemn marlin]

The archival aspect is important imo. Software emulation and ports are nice but there's something very appealing about emulating the hardware, playing it how it was like when it released

[weary palm]

He wanted money for his efforts. Understandable, but not the open source way. He said all the hours he put into it wasn't even close to what he would make with an average salary.

[junior pine]

Yes, I also understood his position. But what happened is fun somehow 😄

[mortal panther]

What happened was downright hilarious.

[weary palm]

that other psx core died out too, right? but wasn't that because of drama rather?

[junior pine]

Anyway, there's zero activity of this Jwdonal person after that, apparently. It's as if the SRG320 core rendered him personally obsolete or something like that.

[weary palm]

i hope he's ok

[junior pine]

yes, well, I also hope he's ok, but I can see him being vanished by daylight like a vampire when the opensource core appeared, saying "Nnnnnoooooooo!!!"

[weary palm]

he had something unique in the world for a while. and then someone comes around and gives the secret sauce away for free. Such is life.

[solemn marlin]

Arcade games really get me for some reason, just the idiosyncratic audio and visuals, the fpga treatment there really helps me getting invested in something I wouldn't care about otherwise. It really hypes me up more knowing there's another "board" available so there's something special about fpga

[weary palm]

People weren't too keen to pay up, if I remember correctly. Perhaps he could've sold it to some chinese clone company or something.

but there were already Super Famiclones, I think

[junior pine]

There was the PGATE core, apparently booting the PSX system on an old Altera board, I don't remember which one. I think that author was japanese so he never released the core or anything.
Then was that other core that caused drama, by someone called... lazer.. something with lazer... his avatar was a white cat with sunglasses. He stopped development for some reason I don't remember.

[solemn marlin]

I hope the core devs know that they're not just providing a service for gaming and entertainment, there's a historical aspect to it even if it sounds a bit pretentious 😗

[junior pine]

Apparently, PGATE did release something in the end:
https://github.com/pgate1/PlayStation_on_FPGA

[weary palm]

@junior pine Yeah, right! I remember that. He used some obscure HDL language that was behind licenses and stuff

It's sad when productive people leave the scene.

[junior pine]

And look at this! PGATE's core seems to have been ported to the Analogue Pocket (with compromises: no audio and no MDEC which means no FMVs): https://github.com/pgate1/PlayStation_on_FPGA/blob/master/Pocket/usage.txt

[weary palm]

That's cool! 🙂

[junior pine]

What one finds by exploring, heh

[weary palm]

I remember looking at his (pgate1) page quite reguraly with google translate. 😅

https://pgate1.at-ninja.jp/

[junior pine]

I did the exact same thing back then! 😄

[little bane]

Isn't this the same guy who says he made the PSX core for the analogue POCKET? He demonstrated it running some simple things I think in 2D

[little bane]

Are they the same person, from the VeriSnes and psx on pocket case?

I saw some comments on Reddit saying that they were, and I haven't seen any confirmation yet.

[junior pine]

I don't think PGATE and Dwdonal from Nesdev are the same person

[weary palm]

no definetly not

[weak hill]

i read yesterday that taki was initially trying to create a new board to do a more powerfull but affordable fpga, but the put that aside to do possible the DE-10 nano clone affordable to the majority of people in the community. it would be nice to have the DE-10 nano successor some day and the community to do something with it, very smart people

[weak hill]

i think people easily will pay for a better board, if there are better cores for it would be cool

[wanton sun]

Unfortuantly there will not magically be better cores. Devs would have to write them.But they will not for a platform that has no users

[weak hill]

beware of the flyinb balls getting out of the metallic box!

[lament escarp]

Depends on what you define as better. Imperceptible more accurate timing wouldn't make me buy a new board (the first one was expensive enough). Also savestates for n64 would probably better for debugging than actually playing the games. Unless there is a ps2 core (not realistic this decade, not sure if realistic in the 30s) I wouldn't buy a new board.

[cerulean elk]

But could we finally get a 3DO M2 core? 😂

Part of me wants to just sit down and figure this shit out just to make a core for a system that truly is mostly imaginary but then I look at my free time and realize bad idea

[mellow raft]

Like @wanton sun said... The reason why the mister was possible is the de10-nano availability never waned. Without boards being available, developing cores wouldn't be worth it. One small supplier of 2000 boards at a time isn't viable. We need something more mass produced.

[lament escarp]

3DO is so simple it should easily run on the de10. Just nobody around who wants to touch that thing.

[weary palm]

@teal oyster perhaps now, with that many boards sold, understand that there's a demand for it. 😉

[weak hill]

i thought the same, also probably would be the same mister community bying that new better clone fpga also. would be cool.

[mellow raft]

Yes but not enough supply means there's not enough people that would benefit from it 😉

So core devs probably wouldn't bother

Taki's board doesn't require extra work from core devs so that's different

We also don't know if Taki plans to provide this board 5 to 10 years from now. So why would core devs build for something they don't know is going to be available 5-10 years from now

[lament escarp]

https://tenor.com/view/pirates-of-the-caribbean-peasants-gif-12617726

Oem de10 nano owners are gonna be the new dual ram owners.

[mellow raft]

Yes

[lament escarp]

Doesn't do a damn thing the other one doesn't, still feeling elite about it. 😅

[green epoch]

I think this is most exciting this about Taki getting into manufacturing. There is a possible future where we have boards designed specifically for mister, rather than relying on off the shelf parts. I might finally get my 3DO core

[mellow raft]

Except small print runs can't meet the demand we need.

It's cheaper but how long can he provide those at that price. He didn't buy 100000 units of the parts. So part prices could change years from now.

Not trying to be cynical, but big production companies like Terasic will be able to meet the demand.

So it's not an easy comparison

[worn delta]

MiSTer 2 is likely to be the DE-25 Nano, assuming it does what Sorg and people are hoping it does. Kitrinx discussed this recently here for anyone who missed it:
#share-media message

[mellow raft]

We should call it the SiSTer @woeful grove

big sister to the MiSTer. Or the sister from another MiSTer.

[lament escarp]

My vote is for MiSTerer, like MiSTer, but more.

And if it's sister would would need asinine capitalization, wo nobody can spell it right on the first try.

SisTEr or something

[mortal panther]

I think it should break away from its AMiga/Atari ST nomenclature roots and adopt a more all-encompassing moniker.

[worn delta]

I would just assume it will be called MiSTer 2

[mortal panther]

...or that. 😏

Super MiSTer Entertainment System

[junior pine]

I like "Super MiSTer" too 😄

[magic girder]

MiSTer MiSTer

[lament escarp]

QuiSTer, a dedicated fpga platform for quiz games?

[magic girder]

If someone made an FPGA replication of the quiz machines they had in the pubs here, I’d be over the moon

But I expect they were powered by some windows XP machine

[sullen harbor]

The real name
MiST
MiSTer
MiSTest

Ultra Mister 64

Mistcube

Mii

Miiu

Mitch

[lament escarp]

Porkchop should make a case for the mister that says mister 64 for the people that didn't believe n64 was possible.

[mortal panther]

The Impossible Case™️

[mellow raft]

ImPiSTer

[lament escarp]

Yeah make it with M.C. Esher geometry. 😋

[inner isle]

Does mister now patch N64 games for you or is that a non official build?

[weak hill]

what would a n64 on drugs would be like? better framerate like the turbo core? or what else do you think it would be?

[dusty tusk]

At this point the MiSTer is so far from the original MiST project I'd just do a full name reset

[green epoch]

It’s in mister official, but I dunno if there has been an official version built with it yet

[inner isle]

Cheers mate

[gilded whale]

The Misses

[magic girder]

The “don’t tell the missus”

[solemn marlin]

MiSTeN, from amiga, atari st to the last fifth generation console, nintendo 64

SPLInteR (Saturn+Playstation+Nintendo 64+Virtual Boy) 😎

Or just ride out and fight nintendo on the battlefield, name it the Nintendo 69, we all know that game consoles are just different nintendos anyway

Or do a Prince, just have a sweet symbol that stands for "The open-source fpga project (Formerly Known as MiSTer)"

[thorn quiver]

🏧

[ivory laurel]

Cloudster

[gritty basalt]

I think we should call it "MiSTer ✊ er". Apparently I can't use the actual F word on this server, so just replace the "M" in "MiSTer" with an "F" and there you go.

Unlike it's big brother, this one will just flat-out knock out the competition

[gritty basalt]

There's a TMNT Master Splinter joke in here somewhere...

[topaz otter]

why would the word Friendship be banned on this server

[gritty basalt]

Probably because we're all a bunch of Saturday-Morning Cartoon villains who hate friendship. Or something.

Although realistically speaking, it's because none of us have any friends.

[topaz otter]

Now this is just hurtful, for the other people in this server, not for me obviously

[gritty basalt]

I'm joking, of course. I like to engage in a bit of gallow's humor here and there.

[topaz otter]

also the obvious solution is to plug a gender changer into the MiSTer and it becomes a SiSTer

[gritty basalt]

Besides, it's not like I was excluding myself in my little remark 😎

[gritty basalt]

Why change genders when you can just change into trucks like an Autobot. FPGAs are all about reconfiguring themselves so they can emulate other types of hardware, right? So what we're all messing with here are a bunch of miniature Transformers!

Transformers, more than meets the eye~

☝️

See why I have no friends? My sense of humor is deadly for interpersonal relationships, because it sucks harder than an industrial vacuum hooked up to a generator the size of Texas.

[turbid warren]

if you can trans your form you can trans your gender

[gritty basalt]

True

Anyway, my special brand of idiocy aside, I might as well be serious about the topic at hand for a minute and say that I think keeping the general naming convention for successor boards for the MiSTer project will be better from a marketing standpoint in the long run, so copying from Sony PlayStation's playbook by just adding new numbers to the end of "MiSTer" is the way to go.

So, "MiSTer 2" would get my vote.

Also, moondandy mentioned the DE-25 Nano as a possible successor to the DE-10 for a hypothetical MiSTer 2. I looked at the board on Terasic's website, and I think it's noticeably larger form factor could be a potential issue for some people who might have very limited space, which makes something as small as a DE-10 triple stack encased in a simple case such so appealing to people who want to keep their MiSTer device as a small and relatively portable package. I could also see the DE-25 being a bit on the large side when it comes to designing a handheld shell, which could make it less appealing for people who want to try and emulate cores for more advanced systems like the PSP and so forth, which I imagine would in turn make developing such cores a bit less appealing for developers since the potential userbase for said cores could end up being smaller than they otherwise could be if a smaller form factor was possible.

Maybe I'm overthinking things from an engineering standpoint, in which case feel free to ignore me, but I still think it's a detail worth noting from a developer standpoint.

[mossy vector]

Where did you see a DE25-nano and not a DE25-standard?

[gritty basalt]

Apparently nowhere.

https://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?Language=English&CategoryNo=115&No=1354#contents

I did a random google search for "DE-25 Nano", found this link, and didn't bother to read the page more thoroughly to make sure it wasn't the Standard board I was looking at.

Sooooo, I just made a complete fool of myself just now. Whoops.

Apologies.

[topaz otter]

This is why male and female autobots never made any sense

because they're frickin robots

[topaz otter]

what does the original Mist stand for though

[mossy vector]

Sierra Mist, now known as Starry.

[gritty basalt]

Off the top of my head, I don't remember.

[topaz otter]

oh it stands for aMiga and atari ST

Mister 2 reminds me too much of Robocop 2 and that was a bad movie

[turbid warren]

Mis2er

[topaz otter]

4aSTer since it will obviously, be 4 times faster than the MiSTer

[gritty basalt]

How do you get "Robocop 2" from "MiSTer 2"?

[topaz otter]

they both have 2 in the name and feature a humorless machine trying to become more than he was built to be

boom, you didn't think I actually watched that movie all the way through but I did

[gritty basalt]

Only problem with this analogy is that the MiSter 2 doesn't exist yet, so it can't exceed what anyone thinks it's capable of AND fail at stand-up comedy. After all, how can you try telling a joke if you don't exist?

[worn delta]

The DE-25 Nano spec has yet to be announced, and we don't know what the final spec will be, but as the video linked before details this is the board Sorg has been in discussions with Terrassic about. So let's wait and see if it is where Sorg wants to take MiSTer 2.

[gilded whale]

Mistier

[gritty basalt]

Yeah, I wanna get as much information about this thing as possible before forming a (more properly educated) opinion/analysis on it.

[worn delta]

We just need to wait and see how things play out. In the meantime enjoy MiSTer on the DE-10 Nano. 🙂

[gritty basalt]

Oh believe me, I already am. I'm absolutely loving the DE-10 Nano when it comes to Saturn and N64 emulation. And although I haven't sat down and played many games on the PSX core as of yet, one game I have played on said core so far was Silent Hill, and seeing that game rendered in true 24-bit colors was simply awesome to see. Gameboy emulation and other 16-bit systems also look great on the DE-10, looking nice and beautiful on my 4K TV.

Saturn emulation in particular has been so great for me that it's easily blown all the software emulation competition out of the water when it comes to basic setup and actual end results. It all looks and performs better than anything else I've tried.

N64 emulation on the DE-10 may very well kill any reason I might have to get an Analogue 3D outside of collecting it and seeing how it stacks up to what we've got on MiSTer for curiosity's sake.

And if the Taki handheld is any good, I'll be able to take it all with me on the go using a very affordable clone board.

N64 and Saturn emulation was what ultimately made me go ahead and purchase a DE-10 earlier this year, and I haven't regretted it since. Hell, it actually inspired me to get involved in debugging RE2 for N64, which is something I've never done before for any other open-source emulation/documentation project. That's how impressed I've been with FPGA emulation in general.

Which is why I'm eagerly awaiting the day where we'll all see FPGA emulation for the 6th Generation of consoles one day be made manifest for something like the MiSTer project. I want to see what FPGA can do when it comes to preserving and enhancing 6th Gen hardware.

Until then though, I'll do what I can on my end to help grease out the gears of at least one of the cores I'm using, maybe more as I get the hang of debugging.

I gotta make sure my beloved N64 RE2 is up to snuff on the core, after all!

[magic girder]

It’s been said on here so many times before (check the search if you’re interested in details), but 6th gen consoles have so much more complexity that it could take several developers several years to come up with anything. I think the Dreamcast seems like a “possibly, one day”, but the PS2 or GameCube aren’t really viewed as realistic at this stage

[solid cypress]

2 MIST 2 MiSTerious

[magic girder]

But I know someone will respond with “but someone said the N64 was impossible, so maybe the PS2 will be possible” - and I hope they’re right, but at some point we will hit the developer-limit

[gilded whale]

The Hyperscan is a 7th gen console and I’m sure it’s doable. 😛

You could even utilize tapto with it

[solemn marlin]

More like Hyperscam 😏

[molten remnant]

Hey 🙂 I’m a RE lover planning to play N64 RE2 as soon as I receive Taki’s clone next week. How is RE2 running with the current N64 core? Is it a perfect emulation? And in a broader way, are Mario 64 ans OOT running perfectly?
Can’t wait.

[vapid moat]

Mister 2 prolly will be fully realized between 2026 or 2027 lol

[thorn quiver]

Way too soon

[latent dagger]

Perhaps it'll be realized by the time California thinks they're gonna be somehow all electric with cars in 2035

[thorn quiver]

By then, there will be no electricity for your MiSTer, so it will have a crank.

That or play in the car.

[magic girder]

Playdate looking pretty appealing right now

[scenic vapor]

Misstress

[rare relic]

Hey @wanton sun, finally back now and able to test out your deblur implementation. I've done some testing in a bunch of games and I'm seeing it match my RGB modded N64's deblur functionality too which is great.

I did come across an interesting scenario where the deblur actually gives a poorer result in Pokemon Stadium 1. This happens in BOTH the core's deblur and the rgb modded N64's deblur.

The first two images are on the real N64. First one is stock. The 2nd is with deblur where you can see some of the letters look squished/weird. Particularly the R in Registered and the first o in Choose

In the 3rd image is the core's deblur, where I did a close up on Choose which has the weird o too. This is also what I saw on the modded RGB n64 with deblur.

The final image is the core too, but with Bilinear turned off (no deblur). And you can see here the o in **Choose **is perfect and consistent with the other o.

So I'm not sure if you have any ideas on what's happening here for Pokemon Stadium 1 and if it's possible to have fix for this situation. Bilinear filtering OFF in the core is the winner here (4th pic). Bilinear filtering on Original next best (1st pic). And then deblur on the core and real n64 is a downgrade (2nd & 3rd pic)

So not the end of the world since you can turn off bilinear filtering for this game to get the best output. It would be great though if the deblur option could better cater for this situation

[magic girder]

It would be great though if the deblur option always produced the best results
Isn’t that subjective though? Given that the console and games were designed with the “blur” in mind, isn’t it always a case that your mileage will vary?

Not being critical, by the way - just saying why I think you may be chasing an impossible dream 😅

[rare relic]

my wording isnt the best there, what im trying to say is if there's a way (that's realistic to achieve), it would be good in this scenario for pokemon stadium 1, that the deblur option can better cater for whatever way the game is rendering the text

[thorn quiver]

Well the text on the left is about half resolution of the one on the right

So it's objectively worse here

Oh maybe it's some other kind of artifact

But yeah

[rare relic]

exactly jensen, its not subjective in this scenario. deblur is clearly worse if it's causing the letters to be displayed differently / loss of detail and shape

[thorn quiver]

I think Robert said that he was thinking of detecting 2D UI type surfaces and doing it differently there

But I won't put words in his mouth

Even though I just did

[magic girder]

Understood, sorry if I appeared grumpy 😅

[thorn quiver]

You didn't

[rare relic]

no worries at all, you're g

[wanton sun]

well, it's doing what you wanted 😅
For the goldeneye menu you wanted deblur to be active which will do a 440 to 640 bilinear step, then "deblur" to 320.
Getting from 440 pixels source down to 320 already sounds like a bad idea, but is probably acceptable.
Pokemon stadium however already has 640 pixels width as source, so reducing to 320 will make the lost pixels very clear.

Of course we could auto disable it for games with >320 pixels source, but then we would also deactivate it for the goldeneye menu (ingame would still be active)

[little socket]

toggle via gamepad button

[latent dagger]

Ew. That would be gross watching the deblur toggle back and forth every time you opened the menu

[wanton sun]

well, it's not changing the output resolution so you would hardly notice it

[latent dagger]

I just live that OG Vaseline life cuz I can't be bothered 😂

[wanton sun]

640->320 deblur will throw away every second pixel and instead double/copy the previous one, so you still get 640 width

so no screen sync issues or such things

I would honestly prefer if that mode is active ONLY at 320 pixel source material, because that's where it really makes sense. Everything else, bilinear looks better in my opinion.

[latent dagger]

I tell you what though

That texture filter you added to PSX is goated

[mossy vector]

Turn off deblur again at 480 wide and greater? So deblur is only active between range of 312 and 479? Sounds annoying to implement

[wanton sun]

I think that it works "ok" for goldeneye menu at 440 source is more luck, because the text is wider then 1 pixel. Otherwise it would get lost as well

if we limit it, i would probably only limit it to 320 wide source. That is 80-90% of all games ingame and covers those cases where you really want it

(or better: only have it active when the horizontal scaling is exactly 2.0x)

[empty cliff]

where can I get the latest turbo core?

20240323?

ah okay seems correct

[turbid warren]

need to figure out how to mount a flat screen in my truck so i can play MiSTer on it when i'm on layover

[spare meadow]

First of all, the N64 core is amazing and most of the games works flawless. RE 2 unfortunately has some issues on the core, like slowdowns and some graphics glitches. Using the Turbo Core works as a workaround for some of those glitches.
You can looking for those issues details on github or meauxdal’s testing list too

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/N64_MiSTer/issues

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1HiL-vHgpL5Wj0iv88EGtMYcmcf9sml35W3sQgRPz2wU/htmlview#gid=0

[dusty tusk]

What resolutions does the de25 support? Finally native 4k out?

[hushed nova]

no change from the de10-standard

exact same hdmi chip

and the de25-nano does not exist so who knows. I wouldn't expect that to change tho

[dusty tusk]

Drat. I'll just push my tv back farther to compensate

[lament escarp]

The pricey solution would be to use a 4k scaler like morph or rt4k.

[quick otter]

Maybe i'm wrong but not to much difference vs de10, ddr4?

[static trout]

the number is the framerate. that's why the current MiSTer doesn't support more than 10 fps, it's a DE10-nano. so DE25-nano will finally be able to hit 25 fps. fr fr

but yeah in all seriousness we have no idea

[rare relic]

How about an option that could cater for this?

1x source - bilinear off
(Allows us to get crisp text in majority of games)

2x source - bilinear off
(Pokemon stadium 1 can get crisp text now with no loss in detail)

Weird source - bilinear on
(Goldeneye file menu text is not "crisp" but at least the text has no loss in detail). Or we deblur here, but I would be curious to know of other games that have a weird source res and see if deblur works. Cause if not and goldeneye is a fluke, then bilinear on is the safest bet. I also think it's subjective here whether deblur or bilinear on is the best option

Hopefully I've understood the source res situations correctly for the games

Then I suppose we might not need deblur? 😅

[pliant valve]

What does an actual N64 have?

[neat sierra]

Mario

[topaz otter]

Blast processing

[marble cargo]

Iggy's Reckin Balls

[topaz otter]

I thought it was Iggy's wrecking ball

Balls implies that there's more than one ball

[turbid warren]

there is more than one ball

they race

[atomic stratus]

Iggy has multiple heckin’ balls

[turbid warren]

Iggy loves playing with his balls

[pliant valve]

People seem unhelpful here.

[fair stump]

An actual n64 is what the core defaults to

[glossy lake]

You realize there is an entire wikipedia page that answers your question right?

[chilly ember]

The n64 has 64 bits

[mossy vector]

When you leave the menu settings on Original, it's what the N64 outputs. GameCube kids and newer cannot stand the 4 coats of vaseline on the image.

And as I yell at clouds, I mention I would have to get up from my chair and manually turn up the brightness just to hope to get through the cave in Pilotwings.

Quake Brown was the style of the time 🤎

[fair stump]

Normal core all Vaseline crowd rise up

There are dozens of us!

[mossy vector]

Dozens!

[magic girder]

Embrace the Vaseline!

[neat sierra]

original output or you aren’t N64ing, you’re playing a fantasy system

[solemn marlin]

There's a fever sweeping the nation and kids everywhere are saying it's the new cool thing. Turn off bilinear and get more legible text - a hip trend or path towards immorality and indecent behaviours?

[gritty basalt]

With a patch applied, I'd say it runs at 98% efficiency on the latest Turbo core, with only the occasional texture glitch here and there that could be counted on one hand, and some of them you might not even notice unless you're actively looking for them. Screen transitions will also occasionally look a bit off here and there and with much more frequency, but they happen so quickly to where it doesn't really bother me when I do notice them because of how unobtrusive they end up actually being in the end. So as things currently stand, the Turbo core is easily my current preferred way to play N64 RE2 on anything that isn't original hardware. I haven't sat down and extensively played Mario 64 and OOT though, so I can't personally vouch for the quality of the emulations for those games, but given how far along the two cores have come along I assume that the general quality between those two games could probably be reasonably summed up as "pretty dang good". Although if you wanna be doubly sure about these two other games, you can always ask other people here on the server who HAVE played them on the cores, or even look up any test videos on YouTube that people might have made and see for yourself how they seem to perform before jumping right in yourself.

Anyway, about the Turbo core: you'll have to manually download the latest Turbo core off this server and install it onto your MiSTer setup since the Turbo core apparently can't be put into something like "Update_All", but it's very easy to do that and once you do it'll run using the same game save files between both it and the Regular core, so you can switch around between each core as you like. Some games will benefit from the extra horsepower of the Turbo core right off the bat and won't require any 60 FPS patches, but some games will need to be patched in order to take advantage of the Turbo core's extra power, so you'll need to do your own research on whatever games you want to try running on it.

[zinc dew]

Whatever gets people playing N64 games is fine by me

[wanton sun]

can try a test build for that the next days

if .0x scaling is used (e.g. 2.0x), i would deactivate bilinear instead of throwing away samples

[mellow raft]

this right?

[zinc dew]

Yes, such a classic

[rare relic]

very keen! if implemented it would be superior to the deblur you get from hardware mods 😮 (assuming all hardware mods do the same deblur approach)

[weary perch]

Super Mario 64 is close to perfect. it drops slightly fewer frames than hardware in laggy moments - that's the only known (to me) measurable difference from original hardware. OoT isn't quite at that level - the two known issues which come to mind for OoT are slight desyncs in longer cutscenes at the end of the game and the weird but extremely minor issue where the initial menu runs at 60 FPS instead of 30 as intended

[spare meadow]

My eyes are not that good, never noticed anything with Mario 64 😀 . Do you know if those issues with Mario 64 and OoT (desyncs) happens using the Turbo Core too?

[weary perch]

there's no issue with Super Mario 64 really

turbo doesn't help OoT, it makes it worse

SM64 drops a lot of frames on hardware. it drops slightly less on MiSTer... i'd hardly call it an issue. just a discrepancy that prevents me from saying it's 100% perfect

stuff like that mostly only matters to speedrunners. from a regular gamer perspective SM64 is effectively perfect as far as i know

even with the slight discrepancy it's still about as accurate as any N64 emulator i've seen. the software emulators can't perfectly recreate hardware performance either yet

they are usually significantly more off than MiSTer

[marble cargo]

You know the core is accurate when Banjo-Tooie runs like complete dogshit.

[weary perch]

😄

[molten remnant]

For the remaining games with few issues, can we expect core updates to end up with a near flawless core on day? Or is the state of the core with current hardware reaching a limit?

[weary perch]

i'm not the core author but i'd say we're close to as good as the de-10 nano is gonna get w/r/t timing stuff

[storm vessel]

Didn’t know that about OoT. I’ve seen the general consensus is to run the regular core for most games but is there a list for the games that truly benefit from the turbo core?

[broken creek]

I exclusively use the turbo core lol. I pretty much have only play Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, and Shadows of the Empire to any great extent though, and all three run great, better than real hardware's slideshow.

[weary perch]

was gonna say, i'm not sure that's the consensus haha

turbo core is pretty amazing. i'd use that in most cases unless you have issues

most games aren't timing sensitive to the extent that you'd prefer the way worse framerates

[broken creek]

I've waited 25 years to play N64 games at the frame rates they deserve. No way in hell I'm going to play them on the regular core hahaha.

[vapid hawk]

as a rule of thumb if a game has a solid, capped framerate on the regular core, its probably best played there since the devs knew that and may of coded against it, and its unlikely to run faster on turbo anyway. if the game has a highly varying framerate with no cap, it'll likely be more enjoyable on the turbo core

[weary perch]

if you want the OG most vanilla experience you probably already know that and don't need to be told, but for real turbo core is incredible and some games almost need it because they are nigh-unplayable on hardware

nearly every 3D game you can think of drops frames on N64

"solid, capped framerate" is remarkably rare on this platform lol

[broken creek]

Pretty much just F Zero

[weary perch]

they are often capped, but you aren't often hitting that cap

even F-Zero drops frames on hardware

[vapid hawk]

yeah pretty much just fzero and zelda

[broken creek]

Ha! never realized.

Zelda is capped dips though doesn't it?

[vapid hawk]

rarely, its 20fps probably 99% of the time

[weary perch]

Zelda does drop frames sometimes

on NTSC anyway

i think PAL is pretty stable at 16.7

[broken creek]

I've owned the game for decades and have never played it (don't shoot me!)

It's on my list! I'm told I will love it.

[weary perch]

the zelda cutscenes that desync desync because of the variance in dropped frames

[vapid hawk]

it can drop when there's like, screen filling effects like fire or lots and lots of enemies around

[weary perch]

it does mess things up, sometimes, the turbo core

there is legitimately no one size fits all for N64

lots of special cases

so, the real answer is you should use both

the core is incredible in how flexible it is

you have so many options but they all really make sense and are useful, it's not just fluff

i use different options for different games, it's really part of the fun for me. some games are mind-bogglingly better with Clean HDMI for example

i had never seen MRC looking so crisp before

[broken creek]

So is OoT completeable? Like if I wanted to actually sit down and beat the game will the core allow that?

[vapid hawk]

sure, lots of people have beaten it

[weary perch]

oh, like 99.9% of all released games are completable now

lol

it is very completable

[broken creek]

Okay, just making sure

[vapid hawk]

it's over 99.9 now

[broken creek]

It just has some glitches is what you're saying?

[weary perch]

it's not 100% accurate to hardware

[vapid hawk]

the very end cutscene slightly desyncs

[weary perch]

but it's very close, about as close as any emulator

the initial menu runs at 60 FPS on NTSC

instead of 30

[broken creek]

Ahh that's not bad.

[weary perch]

it's nearly perfect, tho. yeah

[broken creek]

Cool.

[weary perch]

when i'm talking about "issues" i think people might misinterpret sometimes like in that thread on the forum

most of the 'issues' are things most people would never notice at this point

the amount of significant issues on the core is disgustingly small at this point

[vapid hawk]

people literally didn't notice the menu running double rate for months 😄

[weary perch]

to the point where if you see something off in a game you're not familiar with, there's a good chance that's just how the game is and it's not a core issue lol

[broken creek]

I get you. We are after as much accuracy as possible in most cases, so it makes sense to be scrupulous.

[weary perch]

i'm a real N64 freak, it's like an obsession for me

[broken creek]

I had the system since maybe 97? but only ever owned Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. A freind left OoT at my house and never took it back so that was about my only experience

[weary perch]

i only really got into "retro gaming" as an adult because N64 emulators were total ass and i just got completely fed up with them and bought a replacement for the one i had as a kid

10-15 years ago

they are great now

[vapid hawk]

OOT pretty much invented the 3d adventure game genre at the time it was mind blowing

[broken creek]

Same! In 2018 I wanted to play some Goldeneye and the emulation was terrible, I went down the rabbit hole of accurate emulation and fouond Higan and then mentions of a project called MiST and MiSTer and the rest was history.

It was terrible emulation that brought me here lol

[weary perch]

even the emulated ports on switch and xbox are jacked up

N64 emulation has been a minefield for so long

[vapid hawk]

if you do play OOT though check out the redux patch, it just does a load of tiny improvements to make things less annoying, most specifically letting you toggle iron boots with the dpad

[weary perch]

Robert's MiSTer core is really amazing imo, the only non-N64 that feels almost exactly like an N64. the performance, the visuals, it's all just spot on

[broken creek]

This is good to know. I do plan to play it. I had Link's Awakening as a kid and it is my favorite Zelda, but everyone tells me I'll like OoT better.

[weary perch]

the attention to detail with stuff like analog stick range clamping and BearOnGuitar's recent filters... going above and beyond what most emulators are doing

definitely my favorite way to play the console now and i think a lot of people here feel that way

[vapid hawk]

i thought ares had analog stick range stuff built in now

[weary perch]

there's also stuff like easy dpad/analog stick swapping and 1p2c support, and SNAC

i don't know the exact state of Ares, it seems pretty great

i'm so pleased with MiSTer i don't feel the need to mess with anything else anymore unless i absolutely need save states

[broken creek]

Best of all, the turbo core though 😉

[fair stump]

Did bears audio filter stuff get released to everyone?

Like with update all

[topaz otter]

This is a comedy club not a tech support chat🥳

[solemn marlin]

Someone mentioned something about jetpacking through the caves in pilotwings, it really is awful

At least for that elusive perfect score for us true gamers

[solemn marlin]

Btw I thought this was more like a cult situation, all hail robert etc

[junior pine]

How bad are these desyncs in OoT? I mean, do they break the story being told or something?

[magic girder]

Not yet

[magic girder]

Given the quality of the lip syncing and voice acting, I doubt it matters too much

(None, in both cases 😅)

[solemn marlin]

I guess it's not speedrun approved but not sure if that'll ever be attainable

[knotty zealot]

today i sat down with mgs4 on rpcs3 and i can personally vouch for it being a way to play the game. is it my preferred way compared to original hardware? who's to say? is my preferred orange from california or from italy? these are questions. one day i will sit down and eat oranges extensively with my quality turbo teeth but as things currently stand, things are a little bit up in the air on this matter.

pray for me

[spare meadow]

I am curious too. Anyone has a video or a save file near the end?

[mortal panther]

I concur that it is indeed a way to play that game.

[thorn quiver]

First CGI shown on mainstream TV

That wasn't in a movie

I guess a couple movies came first

[weary palm]

Is that the one from Dire Straits

[orchid nimbus]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0lIlROWro8&t=1s

1986

[thorn quiver]

Mieuuwzik

[thorn quiver]

Yes

[topaz otter]

Core programmers get money for nothing and chicks for free

[mellow raft]

Kraftwerk is definitely deserving of more recognition than what they got though

And I mean for their music especially

[solemn marlin]

I shoulda learned to code the fpga

I shoulda learned to scan them pcbs

Btw that reminds me, I've been meaning to ask, do they actually scan pcbs? I've seen really high resolution pics of circuit boards but does that mean they get some crucial information by doing so?

Or is it all something I've just imagined, I was under the impression that there was a kind of "scanning" process

[vapid moat]

Is this Mother 1 on N64

[mortal panther]

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

[gritty basalt]

Based on what you're telling me, I'd say my assumption regarding their emulation quality on the current cores being "pretty dang good" was more or less spot on.

[gritty basalt]

This is pretty much why the N64 cores on MiSTer are what I consider to be the best way to play N64 games outside of original hardware and a proper display like a CRT. On average, from what I can see at least, the MiSTer cores are about the closet thing that's currently available that can serve as a full-on replacement for actual hardware at this point. Unless the Analogue 3D manages to somehow surprise us later on, but I digress.

[hearty oar]

I’m sure the Analogue 3d will be good too…but no doubt also expensive, will probably require a flash cart until it is “jailbroken” unless you have a large original cart collection, and is single purpose

[gritty basalt]

Had mine ever since my High School days. Bought a used unit at a game store, along with an expansion pack. Most of the games I had for it were hand-me-downs, with a couple being bought at the same store I got the console from, such as Majora's Mask and RE2. I still had a CRT at the time, so I had no issues with the picture quality back then. Had a blast playing the two Zelda games, Star Fox 64, Golden Eye, Spider-Man, and RE2, to name a few. My N64 library was tiny compared to my PSX library growing up, but most of what I had starting out was top-notch as far as N64 games were concerned, IMO. Made me appreciate the system and it's innovations even if I'd argue that the PSX was the clear winner of the 5th Gen in the end.

[gritty basalt]

Pretty much. Although if people can jailbreak it and get other systems to run on it then it could probably turn into a decent competitor for the DE-10 as far as hardware goes, although I'd imagine most people would probably still go with the DE-10 and especially Taki's MiSTer Pi since they'll be cheaper and are designed to run multiple systems right out of the gate after initial setup, as well as offer more variety in actual hardware. I doubt Analogue's gonna make a successor to the Pocket anytime soon, so if people want to play things like PSX, Saturn and N64 on the go then they'd need to rely on the portable systems made by Taki and other hobbyists, otherwise they're gonna be stuck emulating what the current Pocket is capable of handling.

I'll probably still try to grab myself an Analogue 3D later on just so I can add to the other Analogue consoles I already own, as well as satiate my curiosity as to how it'd actually perform compared to the DE-10 when it comes to N64 emulation. I like having options when it comes to emulation, and given Analogue's prior track record when it comes to their previous FPGA consoles I'm pretty sure it's going to be pretty good overall. So yeah, I'm definitely quite eager to make comparisons between the 3D and the DE-10.

[wanton sun]

I have very little doubt that a commercial device with good budget and specialized hardware can easily have a more accurate representation of the core 🙂
One example: JFG only crashes due to CART DMA timing. If we had the DDR3 unshared with scaler, the game would run perfectly fine without even doing a single change to the core.

(the core already fulfills the cart timing testrom ... unless it doesn't get the ddr3 access in time, then it fails the single test where it happened)

[dusty tusk]

Now that de-10 nano clones are getting cheap, I think many are okay with a more expensive and powerful alternative

[jolly turret]

I'm really curious about the Analogue 3D's original display modes, but I won't buy the console just because of that one feature, I feel that the N64 core is already the perfect experience. I could definitely use their controllers if they develop it to have correct joystick sensitivy and dead zone.

[dusty tusk]

I'm just glad we have a great core to play the best Castlevania

[topaz otter]

In order to clone a PCB you need all the traces on the board, i think if it's a multilayer board you have to burn off each layer and take a high res picture of the traces of each layer

They also do this to IC you can sand off the top layer and get access to the silicon, this is a time intensive process

[solemn marlin]

I can see this being done on primitive hardware. They could basically steal a game in the early arcade era by looking at the circuit board and copy what they saw

That actually sounds fun in a way. Less fun cloning a cpu

[vast delta]

unlikely that'll be the case. the gate shape is already wrong from the get go

[jolly turret]

Unless they only showed an early prototype. We'll see when it gets released.

In my mind it would be weird to go through all the work to develop an fgpa N64 clone console and then overlook such an important controller design aspect.

[vast delta]

hopefully

but the reality is they outsource the controller to 8bitdo

who haven't gotten the gate shape right with their stick

[karmic sequoia]

i don't think they've done an n64-style pad, have they?

[vast delta]

they made a replacement board for OEM shells, which included a hall-effect stick replacement

it's pretty good, but the stick is the wrong shape. for mister it's great, because it compensates for that

[karmic sequoia]

oh, because it's a short stick on a ball like a GCN controller instead of a long one like an OG N64

i thought you meant the gate which looked pretty close to me on a superficial glance

[vast delta]

not just that

but most stick replacements treat the N64 octagonal stick gate like a regular polygon

one that has a circumcircle

but in reality it's not. the corners stick out more

[hearty oar]

The gate on the 8bitdo n64 Hall effect replacement at least is the wrong shape, it’s GCN style, yeah

[vast delta]

exactly

both the stick and the gate are gcn style

I did see some other brand with a gcn style stick, but with an apparent correct stick gate shape

no idea if this is any good though

but i always contemplate releasing an improved board for something like this

my original target was that oem-style hyperkin stick that felt pretty accurate mechanically, but the response curves were horrendous

[zinc dew]

They are 8BitDo, same executives.

[magic girder]

Really?

[zinc dew]

Yes

[magic girder]

🤯

[zinc dew]

Legally separate entities but they share a lot of the same employees and are owned by the same parent company

Seems like a common practice in the Chinese tech manufacturing field. One corporate parent and every different product they offer they spin up a sub-company to handle that arm of the business.

But it’s effectively the same company.

[magic girder]

I didn’t know that at all. That’s pretty cool though

[vast delta]

oh wow, i had no idea

i could swear Analogue was american

[zinc dew]

Their parent company is SHENZHEN BESTODO TECH CO., LTD

[vast delta]

or at least founded and operated in the states

[zinc dew]

Not at all

But they want to give that appearance

[vast delta]

even when they did the neogeo console back in the day?

[zinc dew]

Yeah

[vast delta]

https://tenor.com/view/themoreyouknow-star-rainbowstreak-nbc-gif-4884642

[vast delta]

i know for a fact their products are designed in the US

i can't disclose how i know that, but i do

at least until 2019, they were

[zinc dew]

Yeah they use external partners to design their stuff and most of the designers are in different countries

[neat sierra]

My uncle works at analogue

[zinc dew]

So it would make sense it’s designed in the U.S.

[storm vessel]

Christopher Taber is Chinese? Wow 😅

[zinc dew]

He isn’t, scooped him up to run the US face of the company.

[storm vessel]

Well, he could be half 🤷‍♂️

[zinc dew]

He’s also 8BitDo’s Chief Marketing Officer

Sorry just info dumping here lol

[storm vessel]

(Sorry, no coffee in brain yet, extra stoopid now 🤪)

[zinc dew]

I’m excited to see how Analogue’s N64 system stacks up.

[cerulean elk]

The old Chinese shell game

[zinc dew]

I could be wrong, I’ve just noticed it across a few companies. I think it’s smart from but can be a bit confusing from my outsider perspective.

[stone pilot]

Stacks up? Are they doing the N64DD?

[zinc dew]

lol I mean against the MiSTer core

But I enjoyed the joke

[cerulean elk]

There is so much debt sheltering and misdirection in Chicago from an economic “strength” standpoint. Mostly in real estate but also in tech. These subsidiary companies allow for legal protections but also serve as a funnel to offload bad debt / high interest debt…especially if the money is owed outside of China

China Good Tech Inc opens up China Good Tech Co, China Good Tech Biz and China Good Tech Incorporated, spreads the parent companies debt across the subsidiaries and if they succeed awesome. If not they kill them and the debt along with it. If a foreign entity tries to go after this clearly shady business practice the government isn’t going to let it happen

When I authorized payments to our factories in China when I worked at Burton I’d be paying half a dozen companies and not a single one had the name of the company on the manufacturing paperwork

[gritty basalt]

You learn something new every day. I had no idea this was the case.

[gritty basalt]

Well, we all know it's likely not gonna be a MiSTer triple stack, at the very least!

||I'll show myself out now. ||

[mortal panther]

Well, that information did come from Robby, so... take that with a large grain of margarita salt. 😏

[gritty basalt]

Why? Is Robby also a salt merchant in addition to everything else we know him to be? 🧂

[mortal panther]

He wears many hats.

[gritty basalt]

So a TF2 player, then. Got it 👍

[mortal panther]

Most of them have the 'DOOM' logo on them though...

[gritty basalt]

I could easily picture an Id Software and Valve crossover. You can't convince me The Pyro wouldn't make for a good playable protag in a DOOM game

Getting back on topic, I do hope that the controller that they're gonna make for the Analogue 3D will actually turn out pretty good in the end. If the gate shape ends up being a problem when it comes to accurately emulating original hardware then maybe such a controller can be better utilized for something like the MiSTer cores since the MiSTer would probably be able to compensate for it. As much as I like occasionally breaking out my wireless Tribute 64 controllers (they have better stick placement and slightly better ergonomics than the wired editions), I'd like to have something made by 8BitDo since I generally like their controllers and use them for most of my current gaming hardware, and it's probably bound to be better in terms of actual build quality compared to most things you'd see from companies like Retro-Bit. Never used a Brawler 64 controller so I can't make any comments on them.

Although I will say that games like RE2 for the N64 can be enjoyed just fine with any other type of controller since games like classic RE are designed in such a way to where you could technically play them with SNES controllers with little issue if you really wanted to. You just gotta configure your controller settings for specific games like that and you're good to go. Everything else, though, I'd prefer to have an actual N64 button layout, but not have to hold a trident in my hands.

[bold tendon]

8BitDo's gamecube-style swap-in thumbstick component has very good/accurate circularity, one of the best aside from the NSO controller, and lower latency than NSO

seems fair to assume they'll get it right for the Analogue 3d pad

Ctrl-F 8BitDo https://misteraddons.com/blogs/news/ultra-n64-controller-review

[vast delta]

The prob is that it's not supposed to have good circularity

[bold tendon]

I'm talking about "good" relative to the N64 range. click through and read.

[vast delta]

If this image was captured with MiSTer, the stick results are being interpolated

But I guess that the actual long answer is it depends

There was a Mister binary build that fixes controllers with the incorrect stick gate shape

[bold tendon]

i would assume a blog post by "misteraddons" is referring to mister, yes

[vast delta]

And that'd obviously be great for MiSTer if it carries over

But not so much for original hardware and presumably the Analogue 3D itself

[vast delta]

Haha fair enough

[bold tendon]

i don't own any Analogue stuff, am I wrong to assume they're not so head-ass as to get something like joystick output right ?

[vast delta]

You'd be surprised

They are known for somewhat overpromising stuff and then going radio silent for months on end

[bold tendon]

anyway they've already released a preview so you can just... look at it, lol

[vast delta]

The Analogue 3D itself, their website still claims to be coming in 2024

[vast delta]

Exactly, that is the incorrect stick gate shape

[bold tendon]

🤨

[vast delta]

The red shape is what the n64 shape should look like

But this controller is based on the blue layout?

Is it a minor gripe and would most people not even notice? Of course

[bold tendon]

this image incorrectly conflates hardware shape with output data

not the same thing

[vast delta]

But i want my cycle accuracy in my controller too damnit

[vast delta]

Of course it is, we're talking about linear sensors

Linear angular sensors to be more precise

If you roll the stick it should draw its exact shape

So much so that there was an effort to correct this in software

At least in MiSTer, dunno about emulators

[bold tendon]

literally anything that handles N64 in software, including mister, is going to need handle it in software. does an n64 have a usb port ? or a bluetooth antenna ? lol...

[vast delta]

That's my point

The 8bitdo controller should be great for MiSTer

But not necessarily for original hardware

[bold tendon]

at least as good as the swap-in board anyway

one hopes

[vast delta]

And we don't know how Analogue will implement it

[bold tendon]

does other analogue hw support native controllers ?

[vast delta]

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/so much so (that)

[vast delta]

Yup

They don't even usually have usb ports

[bold tendon]

they do pack in BT support for 8BitDo pads though

[vast delta]

That's a good question, i know the Pocket Dock does

I dont think the super nt or mega sg do, though

So it's an incorrect statement lol

Without analogue disclosing more info, all we can do is guess

[bold tendon]

ig the q is whether they bother with a "retro adapter" for n64 as they have the other consoles... i suppose they will even though there are plenty of fine existing options

i'll ask an eng

[vast delta]

For all we know this controller may very well come with an n64 dongle

[vapid hawk]

thats how they've always done it before

[topaz otter]

the problem is that you have some bad N64 games in which they messed up the analogue stick. And some of them you have to push the stick to the outer edges of its bounds to get the character fully moving because the developers were lazy. And some of them the stick is way too sensitive

controllers with stupid gate designs make that problem even worse

[vapid hawk]

there's even some games where pushing values over 85 will cause no input

[topaz otter]

the old ugly madcatz controller with the steel stick is the worst offender

its sensitivity is HIGH

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/WSwAAOSwKHtdwrKM/s-l1600.webp

games in which the gate is a dumb shape hit the boundaries in weird places

each axis is basically 0 - 255 steps since its a digital stick

if your controller only goes from 0 - 84 then your gonna have a problem with making mario run at full speed

because mario walks up until 84 and starts running at 85

and so on and so forth

I also think at the end of the N64 lifecycle some companies started using actual analog sticks like the ones in the PS1 and an analog to digital converter

this has its own problems

the good thing is that the ones with analog sticks will never wear out, the bad news is that the sensitivity is stupidly high

[zinc dew]

N64, more like BabyConsole64

Get it? Because the games are made for babies

[topaz otter]

your right

https://c.media-amazon.com/images/I/81T+3fwuauL._SL1500_.jpg

[chilly ember]

Le baby 64

[gilded whale]

Those pesky babies are at it again

[rich warren]

Decent video highlighting importance of the stick sensor
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wQVPmj1v1lA&pp=ygUYbjY0IGFuYWxvZyBzdGljayB0ZXN0aW5n

The two GCN style ones were way more jittery than the smooth OEM stick

[vast delta]

The bane of younger brothers throughout the world

I'm trying to remember the name of the 3rd part controller I had as a kid.. it had the worst dpad design I have ever seen... Each direction had a small concave hole

This aberration

Oh look, the gate shape is correct lol

[zinc dew]

That looks pretty cool ngl

[vast delta]

It was horrible

[mossy vector]

What is rapid fire with 16 frames per second?

[upper pivot]

You can Xray PCBs

[storm vessel]

Dynacom? Sounds like a generic bad guy company in a movie.

[upper pivot]

https://youtu.be/9mUsgJ-HiDM?si=hOD4K6q87tvLAKDo

This just keeps getting more impressive

[fair stump]

This needs more buttons and switches. We can go further. We have the technology.

[vast delta]

Yup. A well-known clone console brand in Brazil

Had their big moment in the late 80s cloning the NES for the domestic market as imports were forbidden

[gilded whale]

I wish they put the buttons on the backside and added more switches

[solemn marlin]

Is there a usb to n64 adapter? For controllers I mean

[gritty basalt]

On the topic of wonky third party N64 controllers, allow me to share with all of you a couple of my own that I own, both of them having also been hand-me-downs I got from a relative back during my High School days.

First up, this thing: the "Super Pad 64", by Recoton!

It's about as comfortable to use as it looks... as in, not very comfortable at all. The main body of the controller was a lot thicker than your standard N64 controller and it only had just the one handle bar to grab onto, so it felt even more awkward to use than the standard controller no matter how you tried to hold it. Needless to say, I didn't use this thing all that much and either stuck to genuine N64 controllers...

👇 ... or this thing, made by a brand called "InterAct", which also happened to be called the "Super Pad 64".

Definitely felt odd to hold in it's own right since the left side of the controller was noticeably meatier than the right (not to the extent of the first Super Pad 64 I showed, fortunately), but it was the closest thing I had to a controller that gave me a PlayStation-style layout in terms of it's ergonomics while still maintaining most of the button placement you'd find on a standard N64 controller, save for the placement of the analog stick which was placed right beneath the D-pad and the Z button which was also placed on the back of the left side of the controller, which admittedly felt much more natural and comfortable than any other controller I had for the N64 at the time. So this was basically my go-to controller for N64 gaming back when I still had my N64 out in the open and was regularly using it.

The Tribute 64, especially the wireless model, blows both of these Super Pad 64 controllers out of the water. But even so, I still got a bit of a soft spot for the little black controller you see in the second image, although perhaps my nostalgia goggles are screwed on a bit too tight.

[gritty basalt]

Not gonna lie, this thing looks kinda cool. Although I'll take you at your word that this thing is indeed horrible.

[gritty basalt]

I have seen wireless controller adapters for the N64 that are Bluetooth and allow you to use a bunch of modern controllers on an N64, such as PS3, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch controllers. There's one I saw on Amazon that you can find if you search for "RetroScaler N64 Wireless Controller Adapter". They're not USB to N64 adapters, but if you're just looking to use modern controllers on an N64 then something like this might get you by.

[solemn marlin]

Yea I think I saw something like that. You think it'd be possible to use it with SNAC and lose some input lag?

[storm vessel]

https://www.raphnet-tech.com/products/n64_usb_adapter_gen3/index.php

I use this and it’s great. Feels just like playing back in the day.

[solemn marlin]

I was actually asking for an adapter that does the opposite, taking usb input so you can connect any usb controller to snac or an n64

[storm vessel]

Whoopsie daisy.
Yeah, never seen one of those.

[chrome quest]

You can check a bunch of controllers and adapter latency measurements here;
https://rpubs.com/misteraddons/inputlatency
Some investigated controllers aren't listed yet last I checked, like all the various N64 controllers Porkchop tested on social media

[storm vessel]

Then again, never seen anything made for USB that I would want to use instead of the official controllers on the system.

Plus, you’d have to worry about driver support for that peripheral.

[solemn marlin]

Understandable imo, it's a bit of a weird request since people usually want to get closer to the real thing

[storm vessel]

What are you aiming to use?

[solemn marlin]

My idea was maybe that I'd eventually have a single controller so I don't keep a bunch of controllers around. Something with two analogs, dpad, triggers etc. I'm using an xbox one controller

It's probably a naff idea since I already have that, I was only wondering if there was something to be be gained if it was possible to connect it to snac

[chrome quest]

I doubt it. Any of those peripherals to get other controllers working on game hardware ports will also have latency added. You'd think it would be easier getting a usb controller to talk directly to MiSTer at that point. "Most" wired controllers will have low latency. If there is a wireless component anywhere in the chain, you are stuck with the latency that introduces.
Fun example is the NSO N64 controller being faster wireless than wired anyway!

And if you do have N64 SNAC, might as well get the benefits using original hardware. The microphone, TPak working up to 4 players, Gen 2 games in GB Tower in Stadium 2, etc.

[solemn marlin]

It would be a bit cool if there was usb snac, an adapter that would immediately interpret the device as an original controller. But I have no idea if it's feasible or if you could get lower latency

I've read about wired/wireless latency and not sure if I came away with complete understanding from it tbh, it seemed to me wireless was usually faster

[vast delta]

These exist, the so-called USB adapters. Raphnet's seem to be the best

[weary perch]

i don't use the wireless version but i find nearly every retro-bit pad i get has extremely poor durability. the wired Tribute 64 i'm using now's R button has gotten feather-weak. you breathe on it and the damn thing depresses. have only had it for like 6 months!

[neat sierra]

https://misteraddons.com/products/reflex-adapt?_pos=5&_sid=c085fe6bb&_ss=r

Encodes OG controllers to usb, ultra low latency, same cables for SNAC if you want to use snac as well

[solemn marlin]

Huh I guess that is ultimately what I was going for, neat

[mellow raft]

I need to stress to you that there's a common misconception that there is perceivible latency difference between USB controllers and SNAC on the MiSTer.

There isn't any noticeable difference from the USB ports itself. The latency is reliant on the controller's USB capabilities itself.

https://rpubs.com/misteraddons/inputlatency

Seeing as the lowest controller latency is 0.69ms.... I'd wager the USB port is not the culprit, and that's impossible to tell the difference for almost anyone (if anyone at all)

The benefit of SNAC is mainly support for oddball accessories, it was never latency like what some competitors try to market it for.

THat being said, Reflex Adapt tries to aid in reducing latency of controllers, so it can help. But I'm just trying to state to never look at SNAC as the reason for low latency. The controller is what you should look at first

DualSense are extremely low latency for a widely available and versatile controller so it's a popular option

[solemn marlin]

That's good to know, I definitely thought it was mostly for latency nerds (nothing wrong with that) and that's actually something I can sacrifice a bit if I feel the controller sits well in my hand

The reflex adapt might not be what I was going for tho, since I have an xbox one controller

I don't know anything about the technology but I guess introducing a conversion so that it could be interpreted as snac is probably something that'd just add latency

Unless I design my own adapter by soldering and cutting up stuff directly in the xbox one controller. Just give me a couple of years

Seems like it's something only I am interested in because I dislike having many controllers and desire a one size fits all solution, which the usb port really is to begin with

I could see a use for it if you have a bunch of consoles but only one controller and want to use that for all of them. You get pretty far with two analog sticks, dpad, shoulder buttons and four face buttons. But it'd be a whole line of adapters and stuff so yea, probably not

[mellow raft]

6ms at 60FPS is less than half a frame..... Most people still won't notice that. If you feel fine with it I doubt you'd complain

when it gets close to 1 frame (about 16ms I believe at 60FPS) is when you start hitting a more common threshold people can perceive

[solemn marlin]

Yea I'm pretty sure I wouldn't notice 5 milliseconds, I was actually looking for a way to put it into a wii or a dreamcast, just to see if there were adapters like that

[mellow raft]

TBH a lot of people struggle even recognizing 2 frames

[mellow raft]

reflex adapt has support for more controllers than SNAC so that supports those and I believe sells adapters for them too

[neat sierra]

Yeah I only use SNAC for lightguns pretty much for example. You got some weird train controller or dance pad or whatever use SNAC everything else just use USB/wireless

And if you want the nostalgia of using your original controllers use that Reflex Adapt and get rid of the SNAC downsides of no menu nav, etc

[solemn marlin]

Am I missing something but I can't find an adapter for xbox one? I guess it'd be an usb one

Then connecting the reflex adapt to a dreamcast, not sure that's what it's for, maybe I'm misunderstanding

[zinc dew]

Train controllers ARE NOT WEIRD

It’s the people who buy them that are weird

[neat sierra]

Xbox one is just usb and should just plug and work. This for old console controllers with their random connector types to adapt to usb

[mellow raft]

Reflex Adapt is only intended for retro controllers. 6ms is just plugging into the MiSTer USB directly lol

https://rpubs.com/misteraddons/inputlatency

This site measures latency with just normal USB controllers

[solemn marlin]

Yea that's what I gathered

I don't think my idea is completely without merit tho, like having a universal controller, but I see that this is different

[chrome quest]

I had considered getting that control once, but hearing this from Robby I guess I made the right decision to never ever buy a train controller in my life 🚆

It looks so neat though! Pocket watch holder and everything! 😂

[solemn marlin]

I like the idea of peripherals adding functionality, the n64 ones are just tortured n64 controllers that have been sliced up into different shapes of plastic

Tho I must admit that I covet the train controller

https://www.dreamcast-talk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17404

That's kind of what I was talking about, but you basically have to assemble it yourself

[zinc dew]

GOD I WANT A DENSHA POCKET WATCH

You know what, I’ll look for that when I’m out in Japan.

[little socket]

would be a shame if someone buys them all up first

[zinc dew]

NO lol I shouldn’t have said Jack shit

[thorn quiver]

Robby comes to Japan, all wrist watches are in the US.

Actually I don't know what a Densha watch is

Is it something with those train nerd games

[neat sierra]

Are they rare? Seems like the train controllers you see posted never have the watch

[zinc dew]

Those SUPER COOL and TRENDY train nerd games

[zinc dew]

Yah

[thorn quiver]

Yes yeah of course

[zinc dew]

[neat sierra]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/186599873376?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=WPTBdVfwRvq&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=qNmcIwa8Rri&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Just buy a real one

[topaz otter]

That's because dynacom used an oem nintendo stick

also I love colored toggle switches with no labels

[topaz otter]

pretty sure that the superpad64, the top one, was sold as blockbusters everywhere because it was incredibly cheap

thats how I got one

its a chunky controller but the stick is not bad

[gilded whale]

The analog sticks on both of these guys, especially the second one were actually really well made, worked pretty good and didn’t wear down.

[gritty basalt]

Can't really say. I have yet to get my own SNAC accessories for my DE-10, so I haven't had an opportunity to try something like this out for myself.

[rich warren]

No SNAC is original controllers on original consoles only

Reflex just let's you use original controllers over USB with low latency

with SNAC cables

[gritty basalt]

Mine have yet to fall apart on me, thankfully, although I wonder how much longer that will continue to be the case. I hope I can get my hands on 8BitDo's N64 controllers before my Tributes start to crap out on me.

[gritty basalt]

I might have to get myself one of these at some point

[obsidian gale]

Forgive my ignorance but when was the latest turbo core release? I seem to have misplaced the appropriate repository for the core.

[rich warren]

New Turbo core is still in dev, so the latest one is from 6 months ago

No public test build either

[obsidian gale]

Thank you. I have the one from April-ish. If that’s new enough then I will stick with it. Just didn’t know what I had been missing, if anything

[gritty basalt]

Must've been how that relative of mine I mentioned got it. I think I vaguely remember these things being sold at Blockbusters...

[gritty basalt]

Yeah, I couldn't notice any difference between how the sticks performed compared to Nintendo's OEM controllers. Same with the buttons. Until I came across more modern options like the Tribute the second Super Pad 64 was my go-to N64 controller. Although I've also been considering giving the Brawler a try, but I'm not sure if I'll do so before 8BitDo comes out with their own controller, which I want for sure.

[gritty basalt]

Guess that answers that question. Honestly would probably just be better to use a wireless adapter at this point, IMO.

[topaz otter]

i think blockbuster exclusively sold Performance products

I also got the performance memory card there

which by the way started malfunctioning a few years ago

I wonder if the ram chip thats on it can be removed and replaced

[bitter fjord]

Unfortunately it's still HDMI 1.4, there is also not that many IO pins and only 64MB of SDRAM

DDR4 is shared with HPS, so there is no dedicated DDR4 channel for the FPGA. I think a custom board would be better

[vast delta]

There's a bigger board, with a larger Agilex 5 device

Available starting Q125

The AXE5-Eagle from Arrow Electronics

Interestingly, it features 2x 8Gbit LPDDR4 chips. I wonder if they can be configured as 1 for the HPS and the other for the FPGA fabric

It's actually configured as such

Arrow may come up with a cost reduced version tentatively named AXE5-Falcon

[vast delta]

Looks like the HDMI is connected only to the FPGA..?

The DE10-Nano is the same way. I was expecting the HDMI to be connected to the HPS, but I guess the scaler has to be drawn by the FPGA itself

[hushed nova]

the ideal setup is some ddr4 that's shared (like the current de10) and then some extra ddr4 or whatever that is fpga dedicated

[gritty basalt]

Well, wherever they got it I doubt they'd even be able to remember if I asked, so honestly it's kind of a moot point for me personally in regards to how they obtained it. Even so, little bits of random trivia about exclusive third party devices for older consoles and where/how they were sold is always fun to learn about.

[gritty basalt]

Yeah, when you put it like that, I definitely agree with you in that a custom board would be a better option than the DE-25.

[hushed nova]

it's highly unlikely 'mister 2' will be a custom board.

[gritty basalt]

I sure hope they do, because the standalone board as it is, based on my own quick research, is apparently priced at around $995 US (this is what Brave Browser's search engine A.I. is telling me, at any rate). The full development kit is bound to add a few hundred bucks more to that price range. At that point I'd probably just consider getting another Gaming PC of some kind since paying that kind of money for a device for a very specific use-case like what we use the DE-10 Nano for is an ask I can't imagine most people would be willing to make, especially in this economy. If the AXe5-Falcon was maybe two or three hundred bucks more than the DE-10 Nano I would assume that most people who already have DE-10s would probably be willing to fork over that kind of money if the performance boost from the DE-10 would be significant enough to justify the extra costs.

I'm just a beginner when it comes to understanding all the actual nuances that go into how FPGA technology actually works, so I can only look at something like this from the perspective of an end-user with only so much disposable income to throw around who just wants to have a specialized emulation machine, so I'll just read what all the rest of you guys have to say about this and educate myself as I go along.

[gritty basalt]

I don't think that it will be either, I just think that a custom board would be a better option compared to the DE-25, after some of the DE-25's hardware limitations were pointed out to me.

[gilded whale]

Everybody is so eager to buy another fpga board, yeah fpga Dreamcast would be a beautiful thing, but I’m completely good riding this one out personally. 🤷

[hearty oar]

I say this every time it comes up, sure an FPGA Dreamcast would be cool for its own sake, but as far as playing I’m not sure what it gets you over software emulation, or even just original hardware which is still inexpensive, accessible and trivially moddable

[thorn quiver]

And not to mention making the Dreamcast core would take considerable time

[lament escarp]

Wasn't mars supposed to have a dreamcast core? Whatever happened to that?

[gritty basalt]

My answer to this sentiment would be that what we'd likely get with a Dreamcast FPGA core is in essence what we already get from FPGA cores from various other systems: Great accuracy in system-wide emulation, in tandem with quality-of-life enhancements that work to preserve as much of a system's general aesthetic as possible, with the level of quality we've come to expect from FPGA emulation in general, hence why we're all here using FPGA boards like the DE-10 and now the DE-10 clone board to begin with.

If nothing else, being able to later replicate other systems on more advanced FPGA boards/chips means those systems can also be preserved the same way every other systems we have on the MiSTer project is also on track to being preserved, even if many of these same cores are still works-in-progress. Besides, it gives everyone more options when it comes to being able to emulate whatever systems/games they want as technology across the board advances, and speaking for myself I'd like to have as many options as possible for emulation just in case something happens to any one particular emulation tool I happen to be using at any given time, whether they'd be hardware or software based emulators.

I'm looking at you, Nintendo 😠

[gritty basalt]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fq3abPnEEGE

[gritty basalt]

I'm not eager to buy a new board! My wallet isn't as fat as I'd like it to be right now!

[hearty oar]

Yeah for sure, I definitely agree that it would be really cool to see at least

[solemn marlin]

We need a new fpga so we can finally have ps5 pro core

[mortal panther]

Plot twist: the new board will cost $700...

[dusty tusk]

At least it'll have games

[neat sierra]

It’s just a qmtech board duct taped to a PS5

[topaz otter]

And it will still have more games than the PS5 Pr0

[quick otter]

$700...799eur in EU

[atomic stratus]

does this include the N64 changes? #unstable-nightlies message

[lament escarp]

Which is 880 dollars converted 💀

[little socket]

but you see it all matches if all 10m residents of hungary buy it with their 27% vat

[worn delta]

The DE-25 won't be the MiSTer 2 board, but Sorg is waiting to see what the DE-25 Nano final specs will be, and there is a good chance it will be there.

[lament escarp]

I'm looking forward to the de25 enabling better debugging for devs and getting these sweet sweet fixes backported to my de10.

[hushed nova]

it feels like at this point the best we can hope for is the de25-nano just has built in sdram. the de10->de25 standard was basically 'so we put one of the new fpgas on it'

and ddr4, I guess