MiSTer: FPGA Amiga + loads more

[Fuzzball]

I ended up getting the Mister FPGA and it's a great bit of kit. Having said that, I also couldn't resist getting a Pi4 for comparison and to be honest I can't tell the difference between software emulation and FPGA simulation. However, the Mister is a just a generally more pleasing experience with the faster boot time and simpler interface. I'm not sure it's really worth the difference in price for me personally but it's bought now. I have MegaAGS running on it for now but I would prefer a more "vanilla" Amiga experience so will probably install ClassicWB and start from scratch.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Fuzzball

I have MegaAGS running on it for now but I would prefer a more "vanilla" Amiga experience so will probably install ClassicWB and start from scratch.

Me too, I have ClassicWB as the boot HDD with selected games, and sometimes plug in MegaAGS as a demo/game repository.

[Fuzzball]

Got the mt32 pi hat too but haven't had time to build that yet. I went way over budget but so be it.

[netizensmith]

Originally Posted by Anubis

While we are on topic of MiSTer FPGA and minimig core, I need to look on how to install and enable RTG.

If everything works great, I might end up with 2 setups, one with ClassicWB Advance (Or downgrade to full) and P96.

Did anyone try ClassicWB P96 on minimig??

Is it possible from minimig to use second SD-micro card for HD? (can't find documentation on this)

I am also having trouble with ZX Spectrum core. I got bios.rom and I got 128 menu, but when I load game it just does not work correctly. WIll have to look into that bit more.

So far I've checked NES, SNES, SMS, GB, Genesis/MD and TG16(also CD) cores and everything works great. I did also check GBA and to my surprise, GBA core has also save state. (and does not require SDRAM)

Yes. It's a piece of cake and works great:

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Minimig-AGA_MiSTer

Just follow what it says in there.

I'm running it at 1920x1080 8bit on a 1080p flat screen but sometimes run at 1024 x 768 on an Acorn CRT MultiSync. Looks great both ways.

The real joy of MiSTer is the ability to have a pretty maxed out amiga like the above for productivity stuff (yeah, I know, but I still like to mess around with apps and I still use Music-X) and then a quick F12, A500, 1MB RAM, Add a floppy image, restart and I'm playing Apidya (that doesn't work on my maxed out config). Never found a faster way of achieving that.

[daxb]

And what if you just start WHDLoad version of Apidya on your "maxed out Amiga"?

[netizensmith]

Originally Posted by daxb

And what if you just start WHDLoad version of Apidya on your "maxed out Amiga"?

I don't like WHDLoad. Always had problems with it on multiple real Amigas and when a game doesn't work I never know if it's the game, the config, the version of WHDLoad or something I've done wrong. Double disk speed in MiSTer and super quick disk image swapping makes playing off ADF images mush less of a hassle than back in the day. That said, I guess I could try it on this, see how I get on with it.

[dreadnought]

Disk swapping is the bane of the Amiga gaming experience. Tbh I'm much more okay with loading a 5 minute Spectrum game from tape (once, and it's done) than juggling disks 50 times per minute in games such as King Of Chicago.

WHDLoad should be working without a hitch, just choose a standard A1200 setup with appropriate Kickstart and plenty of RAM in MiSTer OSD. Alternatively, if you really don't want to mess with WHD, you can find a hdf games collection (Ransom's recommended), or the MegaAGS image, which has most of Amiga WHDLoad games on one hdf with WB and a fancy frontend already setup, so it "just works".

[torturedutopian]

@Fuzzball : what about input lag & scanlines/filters/CRT-mimicking, and also, smoothness / 50Hz scrolling differences between an Amiga emulator on the Pi and a MiSTer ?

I guess a Pi would be pretty satisfying if I could apply some Retroarch pixel shaders + "runahead" mode (to reduce input lag to the max), but I don't know if that's possible with the UAE libretro core ?

[Fuzzball]

Originally Posted by torturedutopian

@Fuzzball : what about input lag & scanlines/filters/CRT-mimicking, and also, smoothness / 50Hz scrolling differences between an Amiga emulator on the Pi and a MiSTer ?

I guess a Pi would be pretty satisfying if I could apply some Retroarch pixel shaders + "runahead" mode (to reduce input lag to the max), but I don't know if that's possible with the UAE libretro core ?

I haven't done any serious testing to be honest. The Pi is currently not setup but I can get it out again soon and do some more comparison of the two. I did try the shaders in Retroarch on the Pi. They seemed no different to the Mister (other than too many options to play with). I didn't notice any input lag difference but I'm not sensitive to it. I didn't try the runahead mode for that reason - I wouldn't notice the difference anyway.

[digiflip]

best classic wb 3.2 hacked atop of 3.14 best classic wb
[ Show youtube player ]

[NovaCoder]

This is my new MiSTer FPGA fitting kit for my checkmate case


https://checkmate1500plus.com/Products.aspx?id=376

[keito]

This is aMiSTer, my Amiga Workbench RTG 1080p setup using the minimig core. This is a work in progress but thought i'd share a post here anyway.

[MartinW]

That looks amazing! Is it still quite snappy with the resolution and colours?

[keito]

Originally Posted by MartinW

That looks amazing! Is it still quite snappy with the resolution and colours?

It's pretty snappy yes, not as snappy as a Pi3 or Pi4 comparative setup obviously, and I was never expecting it to be. But i've been pleasantly surprised by the minimig core on mister, it's more than useable and quite a pleasure to use in fact, with midi enabled and network sharing and other features too. The only major drawback for me is lack of FPU, which limits some software and demos from running, but otherwsie it's a good daily driver if you like a stylish high end workbench.

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by keito

This is aMiSTer, my Amiga Workbench RTG 1080p setup using the minimig core. This is a work in progress but thought i'd share a post here anyway.

Looks great

Regarding performance, some work has been at least started on a hybrid core using the arm CPU as the CPU (and MMU fpu) and just using the FPGA to recreate the Amiga chipset. It's an interesting idea, hopefully it will be working one day.

If they get this working properly then expect performance something like the pi3.

[keito]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

Looks great

Regarding performance, some work has been at least started on a hybrid core using the arm CPU as the CPU (and MMU fpu) and just using the FPGA to recreate the Amiga chipset. It's an interesting idea, hopefully it will be working one day.

If they get this working properly then expect performance something like the pi3.

If that becomes a reality, the miSTEr will become very special for Amiga "emulation". The idea is ingenious, good luck to the developers.

[RedskullDC]

Hi NovaCoder, et al.

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

Regarding performance, some work has been at least started on a hybrid core using the arm CPU as the CPU (and MMU fpu) and just using the FPGA to recreate the Amiga chipset. It's an interesting idea, hopefully it will be working one day.

If they get this working properly then expect performance something like the pi3.

I would love to see that become a reality.
Difficult to imagine how they would be able to do that, at least with the current standard MISTer ARM side code?

It is certainly possible to "hand off" stuff to the ARM side already though.
Example: The Apple ][ core uses the ARM chip to decode disk images to ".nib" format.

Cheers,
Red

[NovaCoder]

https://misterfpga.org/viewtopic.php?t=2397&start=425

Read about the progress here...

[skan]

Disclaimer: I'm completely ignorant about the inner working of MiSTer, but can I ask: would it be possible to bypass all the linux stuff on the ARM side and just go full baremetal with Emu68? (Once things are stable and/or ported over to MiSTer, I mean).

Of course that would end up with an Amiga-only MiSTer, but if someone just needs an Amiga replacement...

[Washac]

Just put in an order from 8bits4ever for the MISS 1200 FPGA Mist clone board.

Now searching out what I can by way of prep work on how you set this up with an SD Card and connect the RGB out and sound to a flatscreen TV.