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The MiSTer FPGA project is fun and easy to get started with. You need: 1. The FPGA board from Terasic (Linux ARM host, has USB, HDMI) for $130 https://www.di
by hotdog97 8y ago
The MiSTer FPGA project is fun and easy to get started with.
You need:
1. The FPGA board from Terasic (Linux ARM host, has USB, HDMI) for $130
https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/terasic-inc/P0496/P0496-ND/6817231 https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/terasic-inc/P0496/...
2. To run the cores for the vast majority of supported systems you need a custom 32 MB SDRAM board. For timing reasons the DDR3 memory on the FPGA board can't be used.
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki/SDRAM-Board https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki/SDRAM-Board
I bought mine for about $30 from someone in the MiSTer forum - there are a bunch of hobbyists that sell them there.
3. Some of the more complex cores (Amiga etc) need a custom IO board (VGA, SD card slot, etc):
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki/IO-Board https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki/IO-Board
This one also seems to go for around $30 in the forum.
- snarfy 8y agoAs far as emulation goes, how is this better/different than running an emulator on my pc or raspberry pi? I really want one for the cool factor but am unsure of how practical it is. FPGA dev sounds fun.
- adrianmonk 8y agoI haven't ever actually used any of these FPGA emulators, but just wanted to point out that their wiki has an article on just that question: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki/Why-FPGA https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Main_MiSTer/wiki/Why-FPGA
- jacobush 8y agoWell, you can't beat the booting times of the FPGA. Also, if you want a monster Amiga hard to emulate, check this out: http://orders.apollo-accelerators.com http://orders.apollo-accelerators.com
- raphlinus 8y agoEmulators add a lot of extra latency, both on input and on display. Actually it isn't so much the emulator as the host os, with its compositor etc. An FPGA has the possibility of running with dramatically better latency. Similar issues go for startup time.
- Jaruzel 8y agoCurrently though, FPGA emulation of the Amiga hardware isn't 100% perfect (but good enough for almost all tasks). Also, last time I checked, it also doesn't have AGA support yet, so there's no proper Amiga 1200 or 4000 emulation just yet. The FPGA Amiga stuff is all open-source, so hopefully the emulation will get there eventually.
- MagerValp 8y agoBoth the MiniMig and FPGA Arcade cores support AGA these days.
- bni 8y agoActually this has been solved recently in WinUAE by implementing "Beam Racing Lagless VSync"
- hotdog97 8y agoThe fact that everything by default is clock cycle perfect is the big thing for me. It's hard to get that for most of these systems in any other way.