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MiSTer FPGA News – GroovyMiSTer, Sega Saturn, N64 & More

Posted on by Lu

MiSTex

The MiSTeX FPGA board for QMTech FPGA’s is almost ready to be sent to be fabricated.

Hans mentions that a run of 5 boards should cost around $22 assembled without headers. When you include the Raspberry Pi and FPGA, everything will run you less than $200 even when using an FPGA that’s twice as large as the DE10 Nano.

Later in the week Hans sent out a design for fabrication and is willing to send some of the boards to interested developers. Cores still need to be ported to a Xillinx FPGA.

 

TapTo

The TapTo project has been officially been released. The project offers a whole suite of tools to be able to launch games from NFC cards. Another goal of the project is to get it working on more platforms outside the MiSTer and the groundwork to help make that happen has just been finished.

 

Groovy MiSTer

Groovy MiSTer has been updated to support audio.

Also developer Big Blue Frontend added Supermodel support to the core and is working on a frontend for the project.

If you don’t know what Groovy MAME is, it’s a project that turns your MiSTer into a Virtual GPU. Then with some supported versions of Mame, Mednafen and Retroarch you can output their gameplay to a CRT using the MiSTer at very low latencies. Around 3ms. This method can reduce the headaches involve if getting a PC to output to a CRT.

 

Robotron Highscore Auto Save

Jimmy Stones made some change to the Robotron core that makes a feature it had for years visible. Highscore autosaving. The changes still need to be approved before the show up on the core.

Nintendo 64

There is a article on Patreon for the Nintendo 64 core that discusses just how the transition from Princess Peach to Bowser in the painting for Mario 64 works. It has to do with the level of detail feature that was added to the core. Check it out if you like to read technical info.

An RSP bug was also fixed that caused random polygons to be missing in many games.

 

MiSTer Laggy

If you are wanting to purchase a MiSTer Laggy lag tester and you live in Europe. UltimateMiSTer is making them available for sale for 10 euro’s.

MiSTer Laggy is a low cost lag tester, created by MiSTer developer, Martin Donlon, that can help you determine the amount of lag your display is causing. I have a video on the device if you want to find out more info.

 

Jotego Service Releases

Jotego updated some older cores for maintenance. The affected cores are:

JTSHOUSE (Splatterhouse)
CPS1
CSP1.5
JTKARNOV (Karnov)
JTCOMSC (Combat School)
JTCONTRA (Contra)
Haunted Castle
JTRUMBLE (The Speed Rumbler)
JTS16B (System 16B)

MiSTer FPGA Discord Game Challenge

The next game challenge on #MiSTerFPGA Discord game challenge is Tetris Attack for SNES! You will have to compete on the two minute time trial mode and goes on until Feburary 9th.

 

Saturn

The Saturn cores has had updates to VDP1, VDP2 and the SCU that affected the below games:

Twinkle Star Sprites
Cube Battler – Story of Shou
Shienryu,Power Drift,Hang-On GP
Kanzen Chuukei Pro Yakyuu Greatest Nine
Shienryu,Power Drift,Hang-On GP
Shienryu
Gokujou Parodius Da! Deluxe Pack
Tactics Ogre-Let Us Cling Together