3 ms·

miSTer is a technical marvel, but from all the YouTube videos I've seen it seems the gains from miSTer over the latest emulators is not noticeable.

snvzz 2y ago
It's always been about implementing hardware in hardware, rather than software. Sure, software-based emulators for old hardware exist, but miSTer and its community have clear preference for the FPGA approach. And, of course, timing accuracy aside, where miSTer excels is in the ecosystem it has created. The overall UX. The software emulator community is trying (with efforts such as e.g. retroarch) but isn't quite there.
- rbanffy 2y ago
  It depends. Where FPGAs excel is at using actual period hardware, such as CRTs and peripherals. For less powerful platforms, software emulation is quite enough for the casual gamer. I can't stress this enough, however: the physical interaction with the device is extremely important. Even being a software emulator inside a physical C64 reproduction, the fact it's a tiny ARM SoC in there is irrelevant - typing on a physical C64 keyboard makes it much closer to any FPGA connected to a PC keyboard.
tombert 2y ago
I love my MiSTer, and I don't regret buying it, but I'd be lying if I said it was "worth" it; software emulators for every system that the MiSTer runs already exist and have gotten very good. I bought my MiSTer mostly as a "how neat is that?" purchase. I think it's kind of cool to not only be able to run the games, but have a direct recreation of the hardware to do it. I wish I could regale you with tales of lower latency and how it has made me better at Donkey Kong Country, but I feel like most of the differences I see are probably placebo, especially since I just plug it into an LCD TV, not some fancy low-latency OLED or a period-accurate CRT. If your goal is to play SNES games, you're likely to have a comparable (or even better) experience downloading Higan or something, but even if it's placebo, something about it feels more accurate to me. Plus FPGAs are just cool.
- mattl 2y ago
  Have a MiSTER but for Super Nintendo games I picked up the Analogue SuperNT.
  - tombert 2y ago
    Is there a substantial difference between the two?
    - mattl 2y ago
      One plays physical games
      - tombert 2y ago
        I know that, but from a gameplay perspective can you tell much of a difference?
        mattl 2y ago
        I’m honestly not sure. I think when I picked up the MiSTER it was still early enough that SNES stuff was still being heavily worked on.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        snvzz 2y ago
        miSTer is an open source ecosystem with open source cores. The SuperNT uses a proprietary core from Analogue. I fully prefer an open source core I can fix/modify, YMMV.
      - snvzz 2y ago
        There's ways to do that with the miSTer as well. Most don't, just because inconvenient. For most, SRAM savegame dumping is plenty.

snvzz 2y ago

It's always been about implementing hardware in hardware, rather than software. Sure, software-based emulators for old hardware exist, but miSTer and its community have clear preference for the FPGA approach. And, of course, timing accuracy aside, where miSTer excels is in the ecosystem it has created. The overall UX. The software emulator community is trying (with efforts such as e.g. retroarch) but isn't quite there.

rbanffy 2y ago
It depends. Where FPGAs excel is at using actual period hardware, such as CRTs and peripherals. For less powerful platforms, software emulation is quite enough for the casual gamer. I can't stress this enough, however: the physical interaction with the device is extremely important. Even being a software emulator inside a physical C64 reproduction, the fact it's a tiny ARM SoC in there is irrelevant - typing on a physical C64 keyboard makes it much closer to any FPGA connected to a PC keyboard.

tombert 2y ago

I love my MiSTer, and I don't regret buying it, but I'd be lying if I said it was "worth" it; software emulators for every system that the MiSTer runs already exist and have gotten very good. I bought my MiSTer mostly as a "how neat is that?" purchase. I think it's kind of cool to not only be able to run the games, but have a direct recreation of the hardware to do it. I wish I could regale you with tales of lower latency and how it has made me better at Donkey Kong Country, but I feel like most of the differences I see are probably placebo, especially since I just plug it into an LCD TV, not some fancy low-latency OLED or a period-accurate CRT. If your goal is to play SNES games, you're likely to have a comparable (or even better) experience downloading Higan or something, but even if it's placebo, something about it feels more accurate to me. Plus FPGAs are just cool.

mattl 2y ago
Have a MiSTER but for Super Nintendo games I picked up the Analogue SuperNT.
- tombert 2y ago
  Is there a substantial difference between the two?
  - mattl 2y ago
    One plays physical games
    - tombert 2y ago
      I know that, but from a gameplay perspective can you tell much of a difference?
      - mattl 2y ago
        I’m honestly not sure. I think when I picked up the MiSTER it was still early enough that SNES stuff was still being heavily worked on.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - snvzz 2y ago
        miSTer is an open source ecosystem with open source cores. The SuperNT uses a proprietary core from Analogue. I fully prefer an open source core I can fix/modify, YMMV.
    - snvzz 2y ago
      There's ways to do that with the miSTer as well. Most don't, just because inconvenient. For most, SRAM savegame dumping is plenty.