The Best Way To Play Retro Games? - MiSTer Multisystem
ShortCircuit
·ShortCircuit
·2022-05-05
·
3,173 words · ~15 min read
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- It's retro time!
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I told you, you'd know what it is. This is multiple boxes here,
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it's actually multiple different things. So let's start with this here,
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which is the base of what all of this is going to come together from.
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This is the Terasic/Intel, actually owned by Intel,
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FPGA called the DE10-Nano.
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Why an FPGA? Well, it can be used to play video games,
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retro games in fact. Actually, this thing is kind of interesting in itself,
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it's a project called MiSTer. So we've got a starter guide here,
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and a bunch of other stuff, just throw that over there for now. We've got a power supply.
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Plus we got two USB cables,
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one is Micro, and one is Mini, there's the Mini right there, nice and chunky.
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It's like some standoffs, or feet. And the board itself.
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Now what makes FPGA special? They're kind of like processors, but not really,
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they're a lot slower than most processors are, but they execute code basically on the metal,
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there's no operating system, it's for a single purpose.
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So you would use one of these for prototyping, for an ASIC,
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or, you could run retro games on them, because why not?
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This is a pretty Raspberry Pi sized device here.
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So we've got Ethernet, we've got the two USBs, actually Micro and Mini for some reason,
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and we have another USB on the back, which is also Mini, plus HDMI and our power.
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We also have GPIO, or General-Purpose IO pins.
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These will be used I think, because, not only are we going to have
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something for this to go into, which is kind of the, other boxes there.
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But we should also have, I think, an expansion module to give it a little bit more RAM.
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Not a 100% sure on that, let me take a look at these other boxes,
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and see what's inside. These were sent over by Neil, from RMC-The Cave.
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So hello, Cave Dwellers. Let's see what's in this main box here,
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Oh, (Speaker hums) that's tasty looking.
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This is the MiSTer multi-system. There's two parts to this,
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there's this, and there's also a chassis as well.
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This, is what we're going to be plugging this into.
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I think it goes in something like this. So we got the GPIO pins pointing down,
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and what that does, is it breaks this out into,
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SCART if you want it, Ethernet, two USBs on the back,
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VGA or DB15. I forget what this switch for,
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this I think is, just straight up audio. This is digital audio, Toslink.
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HDMI, it requires its own separate power adapter. And on the front here we've got more USB ports,
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and, (Anthony laughing) this USB port here, and I think also this one.
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These two are not USB. What they're wired for, I mean, okay, they are USB,
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but what they're wired for, is something called SNAC, S-N-A-C.
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So serial native accessory connector, I think.
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What that does is, it breaks up this USB, into the native adapter for a Super Nintendo controller.
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Why would you want that? Well, it just so happens, that we can run all kinds of "emulators," on this FPGA.
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Now they're not actually emulators, they're also not actually what people seem to think they are.
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We'll get into that later. This is an expansion port,
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that can be used for all kinds of different things. Like for more SNAC connectors,
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for a JAMMA harness, I think. Which is for plugging this into an arcade machine.
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There's also things like mini-modules, so if you want to run old computers,
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this can emulate old computers directly. Right now, I don't think there are any available
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that I know of. But I do know that there are some that are prototyped,
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aside from the JAMMA harness. This here,
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there's a reason why this, is kind of on this little snap tab thing on the PCB.
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There's some RAM here, there are RAM expansions you can get for these Terasic DE10s,
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and this has it built in, but if you want to use your own, you can.
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So let's move on to the next box. I'm told that Neil included some goodies for us,
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including some SNAC modules. I do like some SNACs.
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Let's see what's in here, okay. So, we have an SD card, presumably.
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Oh, wait, what? I thought he was going to preload an SD card, this is a sealed one.
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Hmm, okay, we'll see how this works out.
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And here is the chassis, or one of the chassis, because I think, the other box, includes another chassis.
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And you'll see why there are two chassis in a moment.
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Yeah, here we go. So if you live in North America, chances are you have no use,
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for the giant, very foreign connector, that is SCART.
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And in that case, you wouldn't want to use this chassis here,
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you'd probably want to use this one. So, there's this chassis, if that's you.
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If you're me, and you have a bunch of SCART devices, then you might use this one,
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so you can plug a SCART cable directly down into it. It's pretty interesting,
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there's two separate layouts you can use, and in fact, this here,
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on the back of the SCART-less version, allows you to hard-wire a SCART cable into it,
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if you so choose. So you're not stuck with one or the other.
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I don't have a SCART connector to show you right now, aside from what is on this PCB.
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But what that carries is basically, everything from composite video,
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to, I think in some cases, digital audio,
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as well as RGB video. Which is similar to what you would get out of a VGA port,
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and that's why there's both of these here. Let's see what's in this, this looks like SNAC modules,
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so that's promising. That looks like Atari/SEGA,
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this looks like original Nintendo, and I also have a Super Nintendo controller.
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Does this come out? Yes, it does. There you go.
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One thing to note, there is a little fan in here, that's for keeping the fan-less FPGA cool.
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I think there should also be, yes, there's a heat sink kit along the screws
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and stuff that I need. So, what I was going to show you, is this SNAC connector.
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You plug it in like so,
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then you can just plug in native peripherals, like this Super Nintendo controller,
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I also have a Super Nintendo mouse, that I'm going to try, with some "Mario Paint." I don't have a Super Scope, or an NES Zapper,
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or anything like that, we don't have a CRT to run them on right now either,
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but it should support those. Are there any other questions
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you have about the IO capabilities of the MiSTer multi-system, Jono?
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- [Jono] No, it's pretty much, I just wanna start seeing it.
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- You want to start seeing it? All right. Well, we're going to have to put it together first.
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6:41
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6:58
Fix yourself today, and learn more at that link in the description below. This block of jumpers here,
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actually controls some of what the HDMI output,
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will actually output, so that you can disable HDMI CEC,
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or you can override the display data
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so that your a capture card, for example, won't freak out
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if you're putting a weird resolution that your monitor supports, but the capture card doesn't.
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So you can go ahead and switch those, however you need to.
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I don't think we'll need to switch it at all, but they're there.
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So we just slap that on there, kind of the same way we would for a Raspberry Pi.
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So the Ethernet cable goes in there, and this here USB cable, goes in here.
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It's a bit of a tight squeeze with that SCART connection.
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So the idea is that, I can then bend these around,
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and plug them directly into the DE10-Nano, like so.
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It's a little jank, (Jono laughing) but hey, it's less jank,
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than a lot of the other cases I've seen. We need to make sure that it is all aligned exact,
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and then, we can push it down.
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We're going with this black enclosure without the SCART.
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Personally, I would use the SCART, but that's just because I'm crazy.
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- [Jono] You can add it in later. - You can add it in later. Also you could just swap the case later if you wanted to,
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it's not that big a deal. Fairly high quality print, all things considered.
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Oh, actually, (Anthony laughs) I'm not sure you're supposed to be able to pet
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the inside of the case like this. - [Jono] Oh dang! It didn't adhere.
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- Yeah. I mean, it's not a problem, but it's something they're going to have to figure out
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for quality control. - [Jono] Can you get your own files and download them?
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- Yes, it is open source. - Ah. - So you can download and print this yourself,
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if you so choose. You also can build this PCB yourself, if you so choose.
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I'm not sure you'd want to. Come on, oh please, there we go.
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There we go, we can use these little buttons that I put in, how nice, and it's got the switch there, ah, beautiful.
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- [Jono] So is this like a little mini-console. - Yeah, basically.
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The idea is, once you close it up, you don't see any of that jank.
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The good thing about this case, is that it's all in one. So it includes that RAM expansion, it includes the cooling,
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it includes the SNAC adapter, so basically you're getting
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all the stuff you would have to source separately. - [Jono] It actually feels really soothing
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to just put this together. - Yeah, it goes together really nicely,
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even though it's a little bit jank. But like, I mean,
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it's a labor of love. Wait, what am I screwing this into?
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This is not the screw hole, that I'm supposed to be using.
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(upbeat instrumental music)
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All right, all that's left is to add the feet. Oh man, if I were more attentive to detail,
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I'd probably use tweezers for these, since my fingers are giant sausages.
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And we have an assembled MiSTer FPGA, or sorry, MiSTer multi-system.
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Designed and developed by, Heber Electronics
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and RMC-The Cave. Oh yeah, just in case you were wondering,
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this is about, oh, look at the curvature.
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(Jono laughing) It's almost perfect, I've got another banana right here.
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So we can kinda like,
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it's a little bit bigger than two bananas just overall.
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Yeah, scale. - [Jono] How much did we just spend on this?
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- How much did we spend on this? That's a wonderful question, $231 Canadian for that.
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That's for the FPGA itself. That's about $199.
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Retail price for the MiSTer multi-system is, £169.99.
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(Jono exclaims) So that's another 200 bucks.
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There we go, should be fine. Let's see, LTT, warning do not drop, that's a maybe.
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WASD, nice. So this fits really nicely right here.
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Nice. (Jono laughing)
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Yeah, it's pricey, it's basically the cost again, of another DE10-Nano,
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but you do get that extra RAM, which is something you normally have to pay,
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I think like, $80 or more for.
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Wait, what? What is this screwed into? What did I screw it into?
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Oh, it was the wrong one. I did mess it up.
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But how come, I don't, okay.
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- [Jono] It's okay Anthony, it should be fine. - It should be fine,
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but I want to have at least one, why did I do that? (Jono laughing)
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So what should we do first Jono. - [Jono] I want to play some games.
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- Got a couple of console games here.
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Let's try this. All right, let's load up "Super Mario World."
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You can see there, it's running at 720p. Actually I think that's a 3X scale,
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for what we're looking at here. And it's currently using the whole screen, we can actually set that, to be an integer scale,
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if we want. And what that does, is it just makes it so that the pixels aren't stretched out.
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You can also set up some scalar stuff, like you can make it look smoother,
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you can do scan lines I think, yeah, scan lines.
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Which, I mean, I kinda dig that, but it's a little bit basic.
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Delay generally is pretty good, but the keyboard is only running at 125 Hertz,
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as far as its poll rate goes.
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So it's not like original hardware.
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So what is like original hardware, is the SNAC.
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So let's have ourselves a SNAC here. All right, let's see if that just works.
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Okay, so, I might have to restart the game here. I can set the serial button here,
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or serial function to SNAC, and what that lets me do. (Anthony exclaiming)
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Now I'm using an actual Super Nintendo controller on this
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with original delay. The only lag that I'm getting here,
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is the lag that I'm getting from the display. Everything is instantaneous.
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- [Jono] If we had a 360 Hertz monitor would that be faster?
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- I mean, it all depends, it's not going to be running at 360 Hertz,
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but if monitor's delay is lower, then that would definitely help.
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This is an older monitor, so it's not the fastest thing in the world.
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It's totally fine. But yeah, the Super Nintendo controller totally works.
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I wonder though, I have a Super Nintendo mouse, you want to set up some "Mario Paint"?
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(Anthony and Jono cheering) Oh yeah. But yeah, if I were to do a,
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L-T-T.
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I'm not using the official mouse pad. - [Jono] There's an official mousepad?
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- Oh yeah. - Oh. (Jono laughing) I didn't know.
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- I feel like there's a little bit of delay actually,
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is it angle snapping or something? I feel like, maybe this is how it works
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in the original as well. It's been a hot minute,
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since I've done anything, but see that? When I click, it stops the movement.
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I don't remember that happening in the original cartridge.
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I think I'm done with Super Nintendo for now. First, I would like to try my SEGA Genesis controller,
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it's just a six button controller. Cable is very frayed, because as a kid,
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I didn't tie up cables like this. I just wrapped it around the controller like this,
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as tightly as possible, which is actually bad for controllers.
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One thing to note, you cannot use a SNAC, on incompatible hardware.
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So I can't use a Genesis six button controller, at least not via a SNAC, to play Super Nintendo games.
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(speaking faintly) Yes.
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(indistinct) controller or anything like that, like an Xbox controller,
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you can pair that, and it'll be fine. It's kind of a bad version of "After Burner,"
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if I'm being honest. - [Jono] It looks good.
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- It looks good, it's not as good as the arcade version though.
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All right, well, there's another reason why, I have the Genesis version of "After Burner" on there.
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And the reason, is this. Analog joy, there it is, start.
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That's really gratifying. And this is what you can do with a SNAC.
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They have SNACs for the TurboGrafix 16, the NES,
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the SEGA Genesis, and the Super Nintendo. They basically work with every peripheral.
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I don't think that there's a peripheral that it wouldn't work with, because it's just passing the raw data through to the core.
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Now those cores, they are basically emulators,
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but they're running on the FPGA itself, so there's no delay.
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That's kind of the advantage you get, with the FPGA. Arcade, a whole bunch of arcade games.
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Computers, AcornAtom, a bunch that I haven't heard of, like the AliceMC10,
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Apple-1, Apple-2, Atari800, AtariSt, BBCMicro,
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Commodore64, Color Computer,
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a couple of others that I've never heard of, I think this might be Polish.
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And for consoles we got, all the Atari,
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except for the Jaguar. Yeah, no Jaguar.
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GBA, ColecoVision, NES, WonderSwan.
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Yeah, so everything up to the 16 bit generation.
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And that's the MiSTer FPGA, MiSTer multi-system.
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The MiSTer multi-system, really brings the entire experience together.
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I think if I just had that FPGA sitting on my desk
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doing this, it would feel pretty rad,
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like, "Oh wow, I'm a hacker man." But at the same time, it's not something that I would want,
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sitting on my entertainment center. This is something that I could see myself wanting
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on my entertainment center. This is a very coherent, cohesive piece of kit.
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And dare I say, it's nice. Is it worth it?
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If you're the kind of person who's like, "I don't care, I just want to play the games."
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Then probably not. The NES Mini, or even a Raspberry Pi with
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emulation station on it, would probably be more than enough. For people who want the original experiences,
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people who want to see what it was like to use these weird controllers,
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to see what it was like to see these games running on original monitors,
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or discover new things, that they never thought that they would
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be interested in before. Then I think it's a really great platform.
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Anyway, if you thought this was a rather nice "ShortCircuit,"
17:17
maybe you want to get subscribed, so you see others like this one.
17:21
Maybe you want to check out, RetroTink, or the OSSC,
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if you want to do some more retro time.
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Or, you could not do that, and check out something else like,
17:34
Alex does cars sometimes, it's weird.