MiSTer: FPGA Amiga + loads more

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

This a great controller, have it too. But since it runs via Bluetooth you can expect 20-25ms seconds lag. Compared to e.g. a 2.4GHz controller like the M30 from 8bitdo, which has app. 4ms.

I use my 8Bitdo controllers with a cable so around 1ms delay apparently

[Retro-Nerd]

Surely, but i prefer the 8bit controller without a cable. One of the main reasons i bought many of them.

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

Surely, but i prefer the 8bit controller without a cable. One of the main reason i bought many of them.

I sit right in front of my MiSTer so the cable is not big deal to me

If you really care about delay then there is also the SNAC adapter so you can use the original controllers, personally I'll stick with my 8bitdo controllers.

https://misterfpga.co.uk/product/mis...ller-adapters/

[Retro-Nerd]

I know,there are tons of good MiSTer addons.

[hitm4n]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

OSSC and RetroTink have nearly zero lag, maybe a few scanlines. Probably not more than 50 micro seconds. It's lag tested and proved.

Until i get a total setup cost for a mister i'm still unsure which way to go. Don't want to spend the money on a 1200 solution to then find the 1200 doesn't work, or only works for 1 day after bringing it back to life. I've even considered these RGB to Scart Converters, but seems just getting one that works is a bit hit and miss and they are generally worse at the job than the OSSC or Tink.

This a great controller, have it too. But since it runs via Bluetooth you can expect 20-25ms seconds lag. Compared to e.g. a 2.4GHz controller like the M30 from 8bitdo, which has app. 4ms.

I would have preferred wifi to be honest, but the form factor of the SN30 is what i needed. The twin thumbsticks, 4 shoulders etc. for the emulation box. I almost bought the new ArcadeStick thing from them, but again wanted ALL the sticks and triggers for things like Gamecube and Dreamcast emulation.

[hitm4n]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

https://misterfpga.co.uk/

I found that site. My confusion with that one was "wheres the main board?"


I've only just started looking into this FPGA route, while it sounds great, i'm not liking the prices. I see on Amazon a DE10 board (uk) is £255 and i would need at least a further £100 on top for 2 more boards (IO and USB board, maybe memory too?) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Terasic-Tec...0440535&sr=8-1 Thats a £350 A1200 replacement. Stuff that, i'll emulate on the PC i'm building with BigBox which has already cost around £300.



I can buy a good to go OSSC for £149.99 - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Source-Conv...0440376&sr=8-3 but i do have that fear of the 1200 dying.



FPGA looks great, but unless someone builds these for the Amiga community and sells ready made, i'm not travelling this road.

[hitm4n]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

Retrobench buddy (sorry its late - need to sleep)

Ahh there it is! Thanks for this, exactly what i was looking for. Didn't expect a £330 price point though - eeek.

Although i've said i'm worried about the risks with my original old 1200, this route is more to my price range.


Cable https://amigastore.eu/en/208-scart-c...-tv-sound.html £10.54
Converter https://www.retrotink.com/product-pa...otink-2x-scart £70.13
Goex drive https://centuriontech.eu/product/goex_sd/ £27.81
Goex OLED https://centuriontech.eu/product/oled_module/ £8.52


I think i'm just going to have to settle on the emulation PC and a Retroarch core for Amiga and let my old 1200 die gracefully. I think i'll dig it out shortly and see if its worth selling. Last time it was plugged in it worked great, but i had an old b+w CRT kicking about then, had to use RF! Picture was awful, but i got the files i needed from some old disks at the time. Since then its been wrapped up and packed away. Has a harddrive inside, an external CDRom drive with its own PSU (very ugly setup). I'll dig it out, take some pics, maybe someone here will throw a few quid at me for it...


Are we allowed to sell stuff here?

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by hitm4n

Thats a £350 A1200 replacement.

Noooooo.... My post from few pages back:

Originally Posted by dreadnought

32MB SDRAM is enough for everything but some big NeoGeo games.

So, you'll need
-DE10 board
-32SDRAM
-OTG USB hub (powered is best).
-heatsink & fan

Overall~ 150E

You can also buy I/O board and USB board but these are expensive and not really needed.

You can buy the DE10 board from these sellers:
https://www.digikey.com/en/products/.../P0496/6817231
https://eu.mouser.com/ProductDetail/...JqTxdJ5w%3D%3D

Then buy RAM from misterfpga.co.uk, the rest from ebay or look around, maybe you already have it. The prices may be bit off because Covid, Brexit etc but that setup (which I'm using myself) most definitely will be well under 200E. Even if you want a case.

Also, there's no need to "build" anything, you just stick the RAM in and connect the USB hub, plug in joypad and keyboard/mouse. That's it.

[hitm4n]

Actually, that all sounds more reasonable. A "real" ish Amiga by my calculations comes in at £180 (201 Euro)

P0496 DE10-Nano Dev Kit - £108.02
https://www.mouser.co.uk/ProductDeta...ZdDLJqTxdJ5w==

32mb SDRam - £19.99
https://misterfpga.co.uk/product/mis...y-addon-board/

USB Hub v2.1 - £32.99
https://misterfpga.co.uk/product/usb...r-mister-fpga/

MiSTer Fan Plate and Heatsink - £12.99
https://misterfpga.co.uk/product/mis...-and-heatsink/

MiSTer SNAC Controller Adapter (Atari) - £6.89
https://misterfpga.co.uk/product/mis...ller-adapters/

Will all these go together? This will connect directly to TV with HDMI right? I'll be able to play most A500 and A1200 games easily (its only going to be an Amiga games machine at this point nothing more). And do i really need the SDRam? My Amiga only had 2mb ram! Is their none on the stock board at all? Last question, is the P0496 the only option? I now see there are many dev boards in this range, is there an option that is more Amiga inclined while sacrificing power to emulate other machines, as i only need this to be an Amiga.

Thanks all for the help so far

btw, i dragged my amiga out, i forgot, it has a 1230LC board in it with some added memory. I found the PSU for the external CDRom drive and the CDRom drive too. Think its maybe a 2x speed drive. Found the trapdoor cover and PCMCia shield too that i had to take out to fit the drive and cabling inside. Harddrive is still in it. Whats a working 1200 worth at the moment?

Can i use the composite out to test on a modern tv if it has a composite input?
Cheers.

[dreadnought]

You don't need the USB hub, so thats nearly 30GBP off. 5-10GBP OTG extension will do, powered is best because then it can support HDDs for example.

Yes, it will connect to HDMI TV. Yes, Minimig core runs ~99.5% A500 & 98% A1200 stuff. Yes, you need SDRAM, and heatsink/fan for this core too (but not the plate, there's a cheap heatsink/fan combo for ~7 quid.)

There are other boards which run Minimig core but I don't remember which ones are significantly cheaper. But it's not like you can just pick any of the other ones from Terasic, these are specific projects like MiST, ZX DOS, etc

[hitm4n]

Ooooh, now we're talking. At £180 i've seriously started considering it (£350 was way too much). At a little under £160 it might just happen!

So i've dropped to the standard heatsink and fan, thats shaved off £4.50.
Dropping the USB board saves a further £32.99 but needs replacing with something else. I think i don't need harddrive support power wise on a hub, so a regular one should do. What connection should it have? If i buy that joystick adapter, it nicks the USBC port i think, so i guess the hub would need to be a standard USB2 plug (or is there more than 1 usbc on the board?). I don't think a powered hub is required, i don't intend to boot into workbench from a real harddrive, it'll just be for ADF games booted directly from a memory card. I could also have a HDF file for workbench anyway, also on mem card can't i and choose to boot that? Never been much into the WHDload stuff, had 4000 disks back in the day.

Your help is much appreciated, you've almost got me to spend my money

So for USB. Something like this? Anyone got a tried and tested hub?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hama-Bus-Po...63589&sr=8-166

If that hub looks okay, total cost is now £151.38. I can go with that i think.
I'm considering a wireless mouse and keyboard too. The idea for this setup is for the living room TV and i need to sit back on sofa so friends can play too without cables. I may even drop the Atari adapter and stick with the 8bitdo controller, that'll shave another £6.89 off. £145 all in...

One final question, you mentioned that MiST was designed specifically for this P0496 board which pretty much means theres no other board options. I'm happy with that, i just needed to know whether other boards would be able to do the job with a few more quid shaved off albeit with a possible sacrifice. Think i'm good at £145.

[dreadnought]

MiSTer needs micro USB OTG, so for that one you linked you'd need an appropiate cable. You can find hubs which are already micro USB OTG.

https://boogermann.github.io/Bible_M...what-you-need/

I don't know much about these SNAC extensions, maybe somebdoy else can chime in. You can also write to Nat who runs misterfpga.co.uk, he's always super helpful with all the queries.

About the other boards, I know for sure MiST (which is a board, Minimig is the core) can run it but it's not much cheaper (about the same, only it's already all in one box, it's weaker though). There are also some other things like unAmiga but I don't know much about them.

[robinsonb5]

Originally Posted by hitm4n

One final question, you mentioned that MiST was designed specifically for this P0496 board which pretty much means theres no other board options. I'm happy with that, i just needed to know whether other boards would be able to do the job.

It's easy to confuse MiST and MiSTer - MiST is a custom-built board with a smallish FPGA and VGA output. MiSTer is a project that bolts addon-boards onto an off-the-peg development board, but it has its roots in MiST, and a lot of the supporting code is an evolution of MiST.

(If you're interested in the history of the Minimig Amiga core I put together a "family tree" recently - I wasn't expecting it to be quite so tangled! http://retroramblings.net/?p=1492)

There are many FPGA boards, some just devboards, some custom boards like MiST but if you want HDMI I think MiSTer is currently the only game in town. The MiSTer framework has been ported (but not maintained so I've no idea how usable it is) on a few other devboards, but again, if you want the turnkey-solution the DE10-nano is the way to go.

The only note of caution I would sound is that in the coming weeks we're likely to see redesigned SDRAM modules on the market. For the Amiga core it won't matter because the existing design seems to work OK for the Amiga core, but if you want to ride the bleeding edge of arcade cores it might be worth waiting for the next generation of memory modules.

[hitm4n]

Thank you both for the info. It's all getting assimilated That boogermann link was useful and i took a look at your family tree pdf. Looks like the DE10 Nano is the current baby, but also the best so far.

I looked some more, that joystick adapter i intended to buy would also need the SNAC connector at a further £22.99 so i've ruled that out now and will stick with the SN30Pro+ controller. Which means i will need to get the bluetooth addon i suppose. I save here, i spend there. Price is up and down like a yo-yo as i make my indecisive mind up.

I also really like the look of having the USB board within the unit, powered via that splitter cable and i like the look of the lava orange protection plates. So up goes the price again

Shopping list now looks like this and although its more, i'm still really considering this... Recently divorced, my money is now my own, so i'll damn well spend it on what i like !! GOT IT !! Yeah.

P0496 DE10-Nano Dev Kit - £108.02 + VAT So £130
https://www.mouser.co.uk/ProductDeta...ZdDLJqTxdJ5w==

MiSTer USB Hub v2.1 - £32.99
https://misterfpga.co.uk/product/usb...r-mister-fpga/

MiSTer Fan and Heatsink - £8.49
https://misterfpga.co.uk/product/mis...-and-heatsink/

MiSTer SDRAM XS v2.2 32MB Memory Addon Board - £19.99
https://misterfpga.co.uk/product/mis...y-addon-board/

MiSTer Protective Cover Plates - £11.99 (Lava Orange)
https://misterfpga.co.uk/product/mis...r-plates-case/

MiSTer FPGA Bluetooth Adapter - £6.95
https://misterfpga.co.uk/product/mis...dapter-dongle/

I mean look at it...


So i guess i just have to decide. Is playing Amiga games on my TV worth £210.41? Tough question.

[EAUniW]

..

[Radertified]

Originally Posted by EAUniW

No.

Yes.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by hitm4n

I mean look at it...

Nah...does nothing for me I'm only concerned with how stuff looks on my TV, and would rather spend the cash on something more useful (eg bigger RAM, Wifi Dongle, controllers etc).

It's your call though.

[NovaCoder]

MiSTer is amazing, enough said

[EAUniW]

..

[Radertified]

A1200 + enough RAM for WHDLoad is the ideal Amiga for most people IMHO.

The MiSTer is able to do this remarkably well. Having it power on in seconds (like a real A1200) and the option of using original controllers are the icing on the cake.