FPGA-based emulation devices: How compatible are they ?
category: general [glöplog]
Would be interesting to hear of your experiences, as sceners, with devices such as the MiST, which can run emulations of quite a few pieces of hardware, not just TOS for the Atari ST series. I believe that Amiga emulation is also provided, along with other retro hardware.
The reason largely for opening this topic is if it is a worthwhile option to travel with, particularly when flying to parties as opposed to driving to them.
Thoughts ..... ?
The reason largely for opening this topic is if it is a worthwhile option to travel with, particularly when flying to parties as opposed to driving to them.
Thoughts ..... ?
I had a MiST with me a few years ago at Revision, and for me it was pretty much good enough (mainly used the Minimig core though). Wouldn't rely on it when it comes to testing out my code, but for watching demos and playing games it's decent :)
I have a MiSTer, and I must say that the emulation accuracy is very hit-and-miss. Depending on how well the platform's emulation core is maintained, it may well improve over time though. Some examples:
- ZX Spectrum: I didn't test much, but "Tiratok" by deMarche starts promisingly, only to crash hard in the middle of the third scene. This doesn't bode well.
- C64: Most demo effects run fine, some have a few glitches, and some fail miserably. Whatever Bitbreaker did in the greetings scene of "Coma Light 13", it does indeed break quite a few bits here. The greetings scene of LFT's "Lunatico" isn't even recognizable as such.
- PC (ao486): Generally fine, though the 486 is more like a 386, performance-wise. There are some bugs in the EGA/VGA bitplane logic that result in erroneous pixels being written at the end of a 16-pixel burst, causing glitches in the flyby scene of "Second Reality" and in some 16-color application software. (Windows is OK though.)
- Amiga (Minimig): Some weird issues with RAM size handling. (Some demos complain about missing fast/slow RAM when using the standard 512+512 configuration, but work when using more chip RAM; some single-filers produce a 103 error regardless of what I try.) Other than that, everything that did start looked flawless ("Eon", "De Profundis", "Nexus 7").
- Sega Mega Drive / Genesis: There were significant improvements in the last few months. At Evoke, I didn't manage to run "The Spiral", it always crashed after the intro scene. But now it works flawlessly. Both "Overdrive" demos run fine too; a few months ago, I needed to start one of the emulator-patched versions of Overdrive 1 to make it work, but now, the version that's meant for real hardware does the job too, with only some very minor glitches in the credits part.
Executive summary: MiSTer certainly has the potential to be the be-all, end-all of emulation, but it isn't quite there yet.
- ZX Spectrum: I didn't test much, but "Tiratok" by deMarche starts promisingly, only to crash hard in the middle of the third scene. This doesn't bode well.
- C64: Most demo effects run fine, some have a few glitches, and some fail miserably. Whatever Bitbreaker did in the greetings scene of "Coma Light 13", it does indeed break quite a few bits here. The greetings scene of LFT's "Lunatico" isn't even recognizable as such.
- PC (ao486): Generally fine, though the 486 is more like a 386, performance-wise. There are some bugs in the EGA/VGA bitplane logic that result in erroneous pixels being written at the end of a 16-pixel burst, causing glitches in the flyby scene of "Second Reality" and in some 16-color application software. (Windows is OK though.)
- Amiga (Minimig): Some weird issues with RAM size handling. (Some demos complain about missing fast/slow RAM when using the standard 512+512 configuration, but work when using more chip RAM; some single-filers produce a 103 error regardless of what I try.) Other than that, everything that did start looked flawless ("Eon", "De Profundis", "Nexus 7").
- Sega Mega Drive / Genesis: There were significant improvements in the last few months. At Evoke, I didn't manage to run "The Spiral", it always crashed after the intro scene. But now it works flawlessly. Both "Overdrive" demos run fine too; a few months ago, I needed to start one of the emulator-patched versions of Overdrive 1 to make it work, but now, the version that's meant for real hardware does the job too, with only some very minor glitches in the credits part.
Executive summary: MiSTer certainly has the potential to be the be-all, end-all of emulation, but it isn't quite there yet.
