MiSTer FPGA?
1 year ago

I guess I'm another person asking for MiSTer support. I'm not 100% opposed to learning the speedrun in Nestopia, but I'm pretty sure a ton of people would benefit from having it as an option over software emulation or an OG nes.

United States

they only benefit from personal preference. there are no direct advantages

Canada

But there are benefits to use MiSTer over software emulation solutions:

  • It's FPGA (see: MiniNT or AVS for examples of other FPGA consoles), meaning hardware replication, which is more accurate than software emulation, with a 100% accurate NES core.
  • No input lag to speak of when using SNAC interface, and a 1000Hz (ie: 1ms) polling rate for USB controllers with no USB stack that slows things down like in Windows, or with Linux software emulation solutions such as RetroPie. Talks directly to the core in use. The only factor in play is lag that would come from the controller's i/o board. Which usually ranges in the single digits for good controllers, if it's not 1ms outright. Or even lower with some homebrew USB-to-NES/SNES/DB9/PlayStation adapters such as DaemonBite.

Pretty much as close as you can get to original hardware without it being original hardware. The documentation is out there, and easily available. No reason it shouldn't be allowed, but don't take my word for it. Look it up. Requests for this platform will only go up with time.

Edited by the author 1 year ago

the main reason we currently ban it is theres no way to restrict left and right at the same time and from what i've heard there's no plans to add such a feature ever which is an unfortunate drawback

Québec

To be fair, nothing stops people from doing L+R on real NES either. LeKukie has shown it multiple times; just pressing in the middle of the d-pad works

North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
LucasWiese6
He/Him, It/Its
1 year ago

@WolfAeterni pls url

Validusername16 likes this
Scotland

@Validusername16 That's more an issue with the controllers and not the platform itself, as Wolf said L+R is possible on an original NES too if you use a 3rd party or very worn controller.

My opinion is while it is a niche platform to do runs on compared to software emulation or real hardware, it shouldn't be banned just due to the possibility of someone using a cheap or worn down controller, if that's the case then we should only allow software emulation.

grendeldotwulf likes this
Canada

@Validusername16 Then by that logic, the NES should also be banned. Nothing on the NES itself prevents L+R from being pressed at the same time. The controller's unaltered design prevents that from being used consistently, and even then, as mentioned above, pressing the center of the D-Pad can trigger the L+R behavior, albeit not consistently.

Now banning the NES would indeed be silly. As it is silly to ban MiSTer for that very reason. It simply replicates the hardware as is, in a 1:1 manner. Ergo, it's not a platform-related issue as said platform simply does exactly what it says it does: it replicates hardware, in all its features AND flaws. It's not an extra gimmick such as, for example, Run-Ahead, which was added to counter input latency caused by software emulation overall in an admittedly tacky way. Now THAT would be a platform-related issue. MiSTer just does what Ninten-does, literally. :)

Edited by the author 1 year ago
grendeldotwulf likes this

the mister fpga board from what ive heard supports a ton of input devices including keyboard. if we allow the mister fpga platform it means we'd have to go out of our way to ban certain control methods that are intended to be used with the platform. sure you can use an nes controller that doesnt restrict l and r (ie one of those weird keyboard esque sticks people liked for a bit) on an nes but thats a special input device that you had to go out of your way to make. and like controllers wear down but there's a difference between something where you can accidentally press down left and right by slamming the center of the dpad and pressing left+right on keyboard. we require emulator runs to have l+r disabled for that reason. it just seems kind of silly to like allow the mister fpga board but ban specific control schemes that are supported by the board/require proof a banned control setup isn't being used right now.

Joshua69 likes this
Texas, USA

hey man

Gekki, yelir64 and 4 others like this

to clarify something real quick it's not that i'm like super against the mister fpga board or anything like that, i wish i could just be like "yeah you can use it go ahead" because we do allow similar platforms like the avs and the nt mini but the l+r thing is unfortunately too much of a drawback for me to be comfortable supporting it on our boards

Scotland

@Validusername16 Again, you can use L+R without even much pressure by using a 3rd party controller on the NES as most lack a central pivot. Not to mention that even if a run did use L+R you could easily identify it, and if it was used to gain an unfair advantage.

This problem can also be patched in the ROM itself, I was discussing this with Simplistic_Memes and he did bring this solution up, while it changes the code the performance hit is negligible and doesn’t change the patterns, framerules, etc. so there’s really no reason why the MiSTeR should be banned.

South Carolina, USA

To put my two cents in, I think there is definitely an argument for allowing the MiSTer FPGA, especially since it is hardware-level emulation of the NES, although what form that would take depends on the consensus reached by the moderation team.

@WolfAeterni does this mean playing on real hardware is banned now lol

Delaware, USA

@Validusername16 in regard to:

"the mister fpga board from what ive heard supports a ton of input devices including keyboard. if we allow the mister fpga platform it means we'd have to go out of our way to ban certain control methods that are intended to be used with the platform"

This is no different than controllers used on a PC when running an emulator. Whatever rules you have currently would transfer to the MiSTer. There's no reason to ban MiSTer unless the emulation is not accurate.

Ohio, USA

Forgive the potential necro here (didn't figure 2 months would be old enough) but would a potential valid compromise for the MiSTer be to allow SNAC controllers as a way to hopefully allow only using real (or NES style) pads? A user would need to show SNAC is enabled before a run, and then could proceed?

It feels like if that would need to be proved before each run, then maybe you get to a point where it's feature complete with an Analogue NT system.

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