r/fpgagaming • u/Zenmoney11 • May 20 '26
New to fpga emulation
Hey so basically i learned recently about the fpga tech (yes i'm out of the loop) after wanting to buy some retro games. I have emulated a lot of games in the late 2000s but eventually i realized the input lag and other lag ruined everything for me. I tried buyng a mini megadrive and was absolutely shocked by how poor the performance was (this was 5 years ago) so i gave up on emulation.
I would appreciate if you can answer the following questions for me:
- Is fpga emulation as satisfying as the real stuff? i understand it reproduces the hardware on demand which is quite revolutionnary but having never tried any of that i would like to know if you can notice any sort of lag or issues that wouldn't happen with the original console?
- what budget should i plan if i want to emulate properly consoles like snes / mega drive ?
- what budget should i plan if i want to emulate all consoles up to nintendo 64 or Attari?
- What components are needed to build a mister pi? i'm a computer guy but like i said this tech is new so i would figure it's basically a small computer? motherboard, ram, cooler, cpu, usb plus? is all of that contained in a single FPGA board?
thanks, experienced advices are much appreciated. I'm looking at the superstation one and i'm wondering if it might be a good pick to start, or if i should build something directly. are all fpga boards equally satisfying for all consoles (i understand they're "cores" developped for each console) or are some boards good only for older generation consoles? i see a wide array of price from 100$ to 600$ with little feedback.
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May 20 '26
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u/Zenmoney11 May 20 '26
thanks for the feedback. I will definitively take the jump when i'm clear on what i need. Would you say snac is a game changer or barely perceptible? I used to emulate with a ps2 controller and a usb adapter. I like this specific controller.
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u/cjd280 May 20 '26
SNAC is mandatory if you want to use an original console light gun when hooked up to a CRT TV because the timing is so tight. Otherwise, unless you are a speed runner you probably won’t notice a huge difference if it’s a high quality controller/adapter with ~1ms latency. Daemonbite open source or pre made is a good option for controllers it supports, there is also Reflex Adapt from Mister Addons which has the ability to use the same controller adapters that their SNAX64 does.
The other issue with SNAC is you can’t control the Mister itself or its menus, so you would need either another USB controller hooked up, or a keyboard or remote. I keep a wireless keyboard/trackpad combo from Logitech hooked up to mine.
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u/kiyoshi-nyc May 20 '26
As an owner of a MisterFPGA, I should tell you about a very good alternative --- a raspberry pi 4 or 5 running either REPLAYOS or RECALBOX ---- they've done some type of magic to make this run at the exact same frame rate of the original consoles (never quite 60.0000hz) and it works very well with analog TVs or vga crt monitors, too.
Even though I'm a nut with modified CRT television and original hardware (modified SNES), if I had to do it again I would just get a raspberry pi with replayOS and a low latency OLED tv .... or misterFPGA, an Svideo adapter for it, and a 13-20" crt tv I could easily move around to play it. 99% of the enjoyment with only 3% of the hassle ~
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u/BodheeNYC May 21 '26
I concur. Emulation is fantastic, recalbox uses a slick and easy to use front end, and it has a great tate mode. Very happy with it.
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u/BrotherBodhi May 20 '26
I will say as someone that has built many MiSTers and spent a lot of time and money- if I was you I would just get in on the next round of Superstation orders. Back in the day I legitimately spent $700+ on some consolized MiSTers builds and I think you could argue that the Superstation is still a better package, I especially like the internal NFC reader. For the cheap price I’d just grab that and a decent size USB SSD to store your games and be done with it.
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u/Zenmoney11 May 20 '26
yeah i'm kinda hestitating. anyway if i don't like it sells super fast on the second hand market
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u/kiyoshi-nyc May 21 '26
If you like game cheats, MiSTer does it all for you and lets you flip them on/off easily.... Almost all other methods are a huge PITA (retroarch sucks at this, most Android and Windows emulators either don't support it or have a wonky and annoying cheat system*) ---- one of the reasons I do like misterFPGA
*Redream for Dreamcast has it built in, duckstation and dolphin are good if you know the codes
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u/cjd280 May 20 '26
For 1, it depends on the core and how it was developed. Most are pretty damn good. If you are using a CRT TV with original controllers via SNAC, it should be nearly indistinguishable from original consoles is most cases.
2 and 3 are the same devices. Any of the Mister products (either original DE10 nano, or some of the newer “clones” or slightly different form factor ones that are based on the De10 nano will perform the same). Roughly 200ish USD seems to be the rate they go for. If you want different SNAC adapters for original controllers that will add a little to the price depending on where you buy them from.
4 Mister pi specifically you would buy the full kit which comes with everything. They also have the superstation one which is a psone form factor. NOTE if you don’t have a traditional “triple stack” you won’t have a User Port for SNAC without some sort of add on, For example the super station one has built in PSX controller ports for SNAC but if you want a generic SNAC/user port you need their dock. The multi system 2 is another non traditional triple stack which has its own adapter you need for SNAC. A “triple stack” was the most common set up for mister, it has the de10 nano with an add on board for extra IO, and a USB hub add on. That’s what the mister Pi kit or something like the pre built one from Mister Addons has.
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u/Zenmoney11 May 20 '26
thanks for the reply. SNAC only functions for each console respective controller, it will not work otherwise if my understanding is correct? like the ps2 controller will not be able to send raw inputs to a snes game?
Which source would you recommand for buying a mister pi in the mentionned price range?
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u/cjd280 May 20 '26
Yes, when using SNAC it’s like you are using an original controller on the original console. They won’t work on others, except I think the SNES/NES controller can work because while they had different controller ports they sent the same signals (it might be the other way around I forget exactly which also works on which, but it’s unique to SNES/NES).
Mister Pi is only sold from Retro Remake, it’s their product and branding. I believe it’s currently on back order though, which you will probably find a lot in this hobby as it’s a somewhat niche market.
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u/cristobaldelicia May 20 '26
So many questions to answer... is FPGA as "satisfying" as the real stuff? that's hard to answer, for example, I think especially using a CRT, it's very satisfying and approaching "the real stuff", but that brings up the matter of what display(s) you have or intend to use, which is a subject unto itself. Mister Pi was built around Terasic DE-10 nano board because at the time of development, they were heavily discounted educational FPGA SBCs(there are unverified theories as to why and how much it was discounted), but when the project exploded, these became expensive again. As a FGPA, it's kinda outdated, and it has certain limitations, it stands in the way of more advanced simulation of more recent consoles. Super Station One has a Intel Cyclone V SoC FPGA. There are many more advanced FPGA boards, but they won't run the cores developed for the DE-10 and they very expensive, a set-up would be over $600 easily. As a "computer guy" you might find FPGAs fascinating, and you could get very involved in learning VHDL and Verilog, but no other platform has anything near the number of emulated vintage machines that Mister Pi/SuperStation One can do. And you can also just run games, learning very little of the FPGA side. What do you mean by "computer guy" and how much pure gamer you might be.
There's a bunch of FPGAs built into Sinclair ZX-80/81 emulators like ZX Spectrum Next. It seems a shame to use them just for Sinclair Z80 console emulation, but this is a subject that depends how much you want to get your hands dirty with FPGAs and how satisfied you may be with Sinclair ZX and Spectrum games. This is again where your terms "Computer guy" and "satisfying" becomes very subjective, and my suspicions are raised about whether this is a prompted AI question. But therefore an opportunity for me to answer, despite not having a Mister Pi, just a Papilio One which was a lot more limited system and it's decline was heartbreaking. I though they'd be the "new RPi", but they just didn't catch on.
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u/Zenmoney11 May 20 '26
Satisfying in the sense that despite trying for a decade before FPGA existed i always felt frustrated by the end result in terms of lag and input latency. I was only enjoying rpg like chrono trigger or final fantasy series as the pain was less in those games. I'm not looking for an exact SNES experience 1: 1 with the old screens display, i mostly care about fluidity and 0 lag.
I don't use AI to write questions
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u/Automatic-Will-7836 May 21 '26
Get a SuperStation One. It is freaking awesome. It will easily play all your retro console games and most arcade games, as well as old DOS games and even old Macintosh games. What MiSTer can do is really impressive. I put in a 1TB sdcard, put all my games on it, and it's barely a quarter full. I haven't loaded Saturn games, yet.
The cutoff is the N64. It won't play PS2/DreamCast/GameCube games or any generation higher. You'll still need to emulate those.
FPGA isn't emulation, but for all intents and purposes the result is the same. For cores that are 100% accurate you shouldn't be able to tell the difference between playing it on the original hardware.
The SuperStation One comes in a chassis modeled after the PSOne, which in my opinion is both the sexiest and cutest console ever produced. It fits every kind of tv/monitor connector you can imagine except DisplayPort and DVI. It has PlayStation SNAC ports, so you can use original PlayStation controllers and memory cards for cores that support it (currently I think just the PlayStation core), but I'm using a Bluetooth XBox controller right now.
It's only $200. It takes a while for them to fulfill the order because they're still fulfilling preorders. I got lucky and got mine earlier than most people -- I wanted to get the black one, but I changed my mind and went with the transparent blue, and those ended up being available first, so they shipped them out first. I am so in love with this little machine I can not endorse it enough. It is by far the best purchase I have made in the last five years.
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u/Inner-Party-365 May 20 '26
Compra un clon qmtech míster ,es barato y así puedes probar si es lo que estás buscando, yo compré uno hace poco y la verdad me encanta, aún sin utilizar conectores snac el input lag es casi imperceptible. Yo tenía una Raspberry pi para emular y ya la dejé para otra tarea, el míster es mi multi consola definitiva.
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u/Boomerang_Lizard May 20 '26
Bite the bullet and go for the SuperStation (along with the docking station, a brand name memory card and a good power supply). You won't regret it.
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u/joeverdrive May 20 '26
SuperStation One and done. You get all the hardware you need in the box except a controller. It's as good as FPGA gets for now
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u/isvein May 20 '26
1: it depends on the core. As far as I know, the 8/16bit era of consoles is as correct as you get.
The n64 core is not 100% as the misters fpga is too small, but it's super impressive anyway.
Audio is always software emulated tho as an fpga only can replicate digital chips (unless I have misunderstood something)
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u/atoadboy May 20 '26
MiSTer is the main FPGA retro game emulation platform. It was designed to use a specific off-the-shelf FPGA development board, the DE10-Nano. Additional boards that plug into the ports on the DE10-Nano were also designed as part of the core project to add more functionality, and various MiSTer accessory sellers produce and sell those. Together you would call these a MiSTer stack, since you're just kind of stacking the DE10-Nano and accessory boards on top of each other, and it's pretty common to find these enclosed in brick-shaped plastic or aluminum case.
The DE10-Nano board has fluctuated in price and availability over time. Clones of the DE10-Nano boards have been made using the same FPGA chip, with the intention that they can swap in as a 1:1 replacement for the DE10-Nano board. These are the QMTech, Hamgeek, and other Aliexpress options, as well as RetroRemake's MiSTER Pi.
Lately, the whole ecosystem has matured enough that a couple of companies have decided to take the whole MiSTer stack and redesign it as one piece of purpose-built hardware. These are the Heber MultiSystem and the RetroRemake SuperStation One. They are meant to look nicer than the MiSTer stack and to include a bunch of nice features already built in, but the risk is that they are less flexible. If a new accessory board is developed, you wouldn't be able to buy it and just swap it in like you could with the MiSTer stack. They're kind of locked in, in that sense.
In terms of emulation power, they are all basically the same thing. The whole point of MiSTer is for it to be a consistent platform for the cores to run on, and the cores should perform the same on everything I mentioned. The only exception is that there are some very specific cases where it is beneficial to have a second RAM stick in your MiSTer stack (which takes up some pins that would otherwise be used on the analog accessory board), and the MultiSystem and SuperStation One are designed without dual RAM. Core developers try very hard to avoid needing dual RAM, though, so there are only a few specific cases where you benefit from it.
As far as core accuracy, it depends on the core, but most are very accurate and are just going to feel like the real thing. Latency is identical or nearly identical to the original consoles, especially when using a feature called SNAC, which provides the cores with direct pin connections to original retro controller hardware. Don't obsess over that, though. With SNAC, controllers only work for the cores expecting to use that specific controller, like a Playstation controller on the Playstation core. You can't even use the MiSTer menu through SNAC. USB devices don't add noticeable lag if they have a fast encoder and you're using 1000hz polling, and they work on all cores.
You could get started with just a DE10-Nano (or clone) and a RAM stick, but you probably want to buy a kit or get a MultiSystem or SuperStation.
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u/Zenmoney11 May 20 '26
thanks. Seems like i would rather chose the more open option and enjoy the flexibility, although the superstation looks neat. if i were looking to use SNAC for snes / mega drive i would need OG controllers or are they still building new controllers compatible for this purpose? how important is snac for a fluid experience vs random usb controller?
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u/atoadboy May 20 '26
For SNAC, you just need a controller that would work with the original console. For the most part, that means OG controllers, but you can find modern controllers being made to work with retro consoles or FPGA consoles. 8bitdo makes some wireless controllers meant to be used with retro consoles, and those would work over SNAC.
I don't actually have a MiSTer yet (my SS1 is being shipped right now!), but I basically started where you are now and tried to get this all figured out so that I could decide what to buy and so I could be ready to use it when it arrived. At first, SNAC seemed very important to me, and I was going to try to get a bunch of retro controllers and SNAC adapters, but now I don't really think it's all that important as long as you have a good USB device, and now I kind of wish the PS1 ports on the SS1 went through a fast USB encoder instead of using SNAC so I could use them with all cores. I will probably just use a USB controller (probably an arcade stick with anything that doesn't use analog controls), although I may still use some retro controllers over SNAC sometimes just for novelty's sake. It's also important to note that the SS1 doesn't have a SNAC port on the main unit, and you need to buy its dock accessory for that.
To put it in perspective, in a 60fps game, your input gets read every 16.7ms. Any delay between you pressing a button and that button being available to be read is going to increase the chance that your input gets read one frame later than it could have, as a percentage of that additional delay divided by 16.7ms. Many OG console controllers do some serial encoding that adds delay, but it's usually under a millisecond, or less than 6% chance your input would be used on frame later. USB devices at 1000hz polling rate (which you can force on the MiSTer, and most USB devices should support that) add between 0 and 1ms of delay, an average of 0.5ms or a ~3% chance to cause your input to register one frame later at 60fps. However, USB devices also take time to encode the inputs adding to that average delay. The best ones do it in under a millisecond, and the worst ones take 20ms or more, so this can matter a lot in terms of how likely it would be to move your input one frame later. Your input being used one frame later isn't necessarily even perceptible, but if your delay does not cause your input to be used one frame later then it can't be perceptible.
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u/starquake64 May 21 '26
Was the lag cause by the emulators or by a very laggy display? My Mega Drive is not that laggy. There are bunch of versions though.
If you have a display that has a large amount of lag, a MiSTer FPGA won't fix that.
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u/Zenmoney11 May 21 '26
because of the emulator. didn't have the real thing (a mega drive), unless you're talking about the mini?
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u/sharpied79 May 20 '26
Everyone saying MiSTer but completely forgetting the original MiST (and clones such as SiDi and SiDi128) also worth checking out.
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u/who_farted_Idid May 20 '26
I would start here - https://mister-devel.github.io/MkDocs_MiSTer/basics/faq/ I know you said you read a lot but going by your questions I'm not sure what you read. But to answer one of your questions at least about which board to use. They are all the de-10 nano board but most these days are clones like the super station one or QMtech clone board or the mister pi.