0:00 [Music]
0:02 [Applause]
0:03 [Music]
0:06 okay so i have a confession to make i've
0:09 been asked to cover the mr project for
0:11 years and generally avoided it simply
0:13 because i felt like traditional
0:15 emulation is so good these days that
0:17 developing fpga cores for old retro
0:20 consoles and computers wasn't really
0:22 that interesting to me
0:24 it's also not the cheapest hobby to get
0:26 into the total bill of materials if
0:28 you're looking for a good setup can get
0:31 quite expensive and when you can easily
0:33 just download a copy of mame or
0:34 beastness which costs you a total of
0:36 zero dollars you start to get where i'm
0:38 coming from
0:39 but before i completely write something
0:41 off i'll at least give it a try
0:44 and thanks to friend of the channel bob
0:46 from retro rgb he sent me a mister for
0:48 me to take a look at and play around
0:50 with i've spent the last few weeks
0:52 looking at it and boy was i wrong the mr
0:55 project is quite incredible
0:59 [Music]
1:30 but let's back up a little bit and
1:31 explain things in some more detail what
1:34 exactly is the mr you may have heard the
1:36 name added in the retro community before
1:38 but been unfamiliar with what it is or
1:41 simply put the mr fpga is an open source
1:45 project that emulates consoles computers
1:48 and even arcade boards in other words
1:50 it's not software emulation like mame or
1:52 business it's all hardware based fpga
1:55 emulation and when accurately
1:57 represented the results can be quite
1:59 incredible
2:01 now when it comes to the mister the
2:03 device that manages the hardware fpga is
2:06 known as the de10 nano
2:08 this device looks like a raspberry pi in
2:10 form factor but you'll note the altera
2:13 cyclone v as the main chip this is the
2:16 fpga chip that allows for users to
2:19 design a wide range of cores and this is
2:21 the heart of the mr project itself now
2:24 you may see various photographs of
2:26 people's mr setups online which looks
2:28 like a ice cream sandwich and this is my
2:30 setup here with all sorts of add-on
2:32 boards going on and we will get to that
2:34 shortly but generally speaking the de10
2:37 nano board is the only thing you will
2:39 need to get started however if you want
2:41 to add more ram to the nano board which
2:44 is recommended or vga output to connect
2:47 to a crt display or rgb scart or a
2:50 jammer edge if you want to connect it up
2:51 to an arcade cabinet all these things
2:54 are possible and this is what makes the
2:55 mr project quite incredible it's these
2:58 efforts of the open source community not
3:00 only developing cores for the mr itself
3:02 but providing solutions to pretty much
3:04 any use case that i can think of is what
3:07 really makes the mr project so special
3:11 so how exactly does the mr work and what
3:13 makes it so different from traditional
3:15 software emulation if we take a look at
3:17 the end result of a good emulator like
3:20 fb neo that runs neo geo games for
3:23 example and the mrs neo geo core the
3:26 differences won't be apparent at all but
3:28 essentially it's how we get there the
3:31 mister runs a separate hardware
3:33 emulation core for each system and these
3:36 cores are a recreation of the original
3:39 hardware schematic and stored in the
3:41 altera chip this is done using hdl or a
3:44 hardware description language as you can
3:46 imagine reconstructing an entire
3:49 schematic of an arcade pcb can range
3:52 from difficult to extremely challenging
3:55 in many instances reverse engineering of
3:57 hardware chips and decapping is
3:58 necessary and as you can imagine this
4:01 process can take thousands upon
4:03 thousands of hours to accomplish
4:06 the payoff however is with a
4:09 well-constructed core the end result is
4:11 a cycle accurate fpga core that is an
4:14 exact replica of the original design in
4:17 many ways we can consider the mr
4:19 hardware preservation rather than
4:21 preserving old games for example we're
4:24 preserving the hardware all mr cores are
4:26 fully open source which means that these
4:28 are available for anyone to construct at
4:31 any time that they want to
4:33 so let's take a closer look at my setup
4:36 here this is known as the jammix and
4:38 this is an add-on board for the de10
4:40 nano add-on boards like these are
4:43 totally optional as mentioned before but
4:45 the jamx add-on complements the de10 by
4:48 providing additional usb ports an
4:50 on-board stereo amp a wired ethernet
4:53 connector a vga port for connecting to
4:55 rgb crt displays and most notable is the
4:59 jammer edge
5:00 this means that i can simply take this
5:02 board and connect it up to my arcade
5:04 cabinet's jammer connector and take full
5:06 advantage of the mister on my arcade
5:08 cabinet the beauty of add-on boards like
5:11 this is that it takes care of the rgb
5:13 output for you and you'll get wonderful
5:15 lag free fpga arcade awesomeness and
5:18 this is quite incredible now as someone
5:21 that has a fairly extensive arcade pcb
5:23 collection for the first time i'm
5:25 considering simply replacing expensive
5:28 arcade boards that i own with the mister
5:31 if you don't own an arcade cabinet then
5:33 the jammix is still quite handy it has
5:36 an itx form factor which means that it
5:38 can fit into hundreds of different itx
5:41 dtx or atx case options out there like
5:44 this one that i have here the jammix
5:47 fits neatly into this case and this
5:49 offers a nice consolized version of the
5:51 mister
5:53 most of the time if you own a de10no
5:55 then you'll need to invest in a usb hub
5:58 or an add-on module that contains
6:00 additional usb ports this is because
6:02 you'll need to add things like a
6:04 keyboard bluetooth or even wireless
6:06 ethernet which is not available on the
6:09 de10 nano the jamx add-on comes with
6:12 additional usb ports and the case that
6:14 i'm using here also includes an
6:16 additional two which connects to the usb
6:17 header port on the jammix itself
6:20 now one other thing to note about a
6:22 typical mr board is this top board here
6:25 you'll note there is a cooling fan here
6:27 now this is an add-on that you'll see on
6:30 most mr setups and
6:32 ultimately why you need calling is
6:34 simply because the altera chip gets
6:36 extremely hot especially depending on
6:39 which coil is being run if there's a
6:40 particular core that's utilizing most of
6:44 basically its internals is going to run
6:46 extremely hot so there's always the need
6:48 to have some type of cooling and this is
6:51 a typical cooling fan that you'll see
6:53 and on the jammics here you'll get that
6:55 as a add-on now in many other instances
6:57 when you buy a mr setup
6:59 it's important that you do also get some
7:02 calling so when you see kind of
7:04 photographs of most people's mr setups
7:07 out there there's usually a fan on top
7:10 of the
7:11 de10 nano itself and that's kind of a
7:13 traditional thing
7:14 so we know how the mr works but how does
7:17 it actually run in practice and what
7:19 cause are available for it well there
7:21 are hundreds of calls across arcade
7:24 console and home computer and we can't
7:27 possibly cover them all here but i will
7:29 definitely show off my highlights as
7:31 well as some previews as to what the
7:33 community is currently working on to
7:35 start with a mr setup you'll get access
7:38 to many different arcade calls and you
7:40 really shouldn't be comparing this to
7:41 something like maim as mentioned this is
7:44 a recreation of each individual arcade
7:46 hardware schematic but with that said
7:48 there are some incredible titles here on
7:50 offer capcom cps1 for example works
7:53 amazingly well
7:55 as someone who owns a final fight pcb
7:57 and a daimakamura pcb the fpga
8:00 recreations here are near perfection the
8:02 original donkey kong is a classic and
8:04 i'm so glad that it's on the mister i
8:06 can play it in my arcade cabinet and
8:08 there's even an option to save high
8:10 scores this is a pretty neat addition as
8:13 things like high score kits on pcbs
8:15 aren't always cheap the mr replaces that
8:18 all i should also mention that vertical
8:20 arcade games can easily be adjusted and
8:23 rotated as necessary via the
8:25 configuration screen
8:27 capcom cps1 and two games are the pick
8:30 of my favorites and they look and play
8:32 superb with the right setup you'll
8:34 experience zero lag exactly how they
8:37 were intended i should also mention if
8:39 you're wanting to play cps2 fighting
8:41 games like marvel vs capcom in your
8:43 arcade cabinet then you'll need a kick
8:45 harness and the jammix provides one on
8:48 its motherboard so you won't have any
8:50 issues here at all
8:51 another impressive core is the neo geo
8:54 this allows for both aes and mvs games
8:57 to run and again as someone who owns
8:59 original hardware and games the mister
9:02 is quite impressive running these games
9:04 on the mister feels like it's the best
9:06 way to experience them outside of
9:08 original hardware i'm also very happy to
9:10 see that cave games are starting to be
9:13 supported on the mister dodonpachi is a
9:16 legendary shoot-em-up that is grossly
9:18 expensive to buy an original pcb of now
9:22 of course there are home ports to the
9:23 sega saturn and ps1 but as always
9:25 nothing beats original arcade hardware
9:28 and seeing this running on the mister is
9:29 quite incredible i'm also told that more
9:32 cave shooters are on the way and are
9:33 being developed another amazing core
9:36 that's still in beta is the sega system
9:38 16 core by dutego games like golden axe
9:41 shinobi and fantasy zone all play so
9:44 well here and it's really hard to see
9:46 why this core is still considered in
9:48 beta but anyway let's move over to
9:51 consoles now this is interesting for a
9:53 few reasons if we take a look at all the
9:55 chords available you'll see that many of
9:58 the traditional 8 and 16 bit consoles
10:01 are here such as the super nes which
10:03 runs as good as you would expect there's
10:05 also the sega genesis and mega cd game
10:08 boy gba master system lynx game gear nes
10:13 they're all here and none of this is a
10:15 huge surprise
10:16 but over the past year the community is
10:19 really pushing the limits to what the
10:21 mister is capable of doing and this is
10:23 one of the latest cause that i was
10:25 playing around with this is the sony
10:27 playstation one developed by fpga asm
10:30 spas this is a still unstable and early
10:33 alpha version but the results here are
10:36 seriously impressive the idea of
10:38 recreating a sony playstation 1 into one
10:42 altera chip is nothing short of
10:44 mind-boggling and yet here it is
10:46 i tested a few releases and still while
10:49 there is a long way to go it's already
10:51 looking good there's also a sega saturn
10:53 fpga core in development this is being
10:56 done by
10:57 srg320 as of right now there is still no
10:59 public release srg320 has been posting
11:03 progress updates via youtube videos and
11:05 i gotta say once again this is a
11:07 mouth-watering prospect that one day
11:09 that the sega saturn will be available
11:11 on the mr
11:14 one last core that's in development that
11:15 i wanted to talk about but is showing
11:17 promise is the ataro jaguar now this is
11:20 particularly cool as jaguar hardware
11:22 isn't cheap and while there is a long
11:24 way to go here i'm very interested in
11:27 the progress as you can see it's showing
11:29 a ton of promise already
11:34 last but certainly not least we need to
11:36 talk about computers and for me this
11:39 represents the most interesting and
11:41 unique part of the entire mr project we
11:44 have access to many different home
11:45 computers from the earliest machines
11:47 like the altair commodore pet all the
11:49 way to an ibm pc that's capable of
11:52 running windows 95 i tested many
11:54 different systems out
11:56 and i've probably spent most of the time
11:58 playing around with the various computer
12:00 cores one of the great things about the
12:02 mister is that for any computer that
12:04 requires a mouse and keyboard simply
12:07 plug in a mouse and keyboard via usb and
12:10 it will just work
12:11 now i'm someone that has a collection of
12:13 old retro computers including the
12:15 archimedes a3010 a sharp x68000 a
12:19 commodore amiga a c64 an atari st and a
12:23 sinclair zx spectrum the mister
12:25 effectively replaces all of them in one
12:27 go i've tested so many different games
12:30 across many different computer cores and
12:32 i've had an absolute blast
12:34 highlight for me was playing games like
12:36 zarch on the acorn archimedes i also
12:39 tested out the x68000 core another
12:41 system that i own i tested out cho
12:43 rinsha and parodius everything felt
12:46 completely on point with me when looking
12:48 at the commodore amiga the mr handles
12:51 many scene demos quite well but i will
12:53 say it doesn't do it perfectly i did
12:55 note some compatibility issues with some
12:58 scene demos like this one here notice
13:00 the glitching in the plasma effect it's
13:02 important to note that while the mister
13:04 is hardware fpga it's still prone to
13:06 errors and glitches that you would find
13:08 on traditional software emulation
13:11 now one last thing that i want to talk
13:12 about is setting up a mister with all
13:14 its cores it will require an sd card
13:17 with the irrelevant software installed
13:19 onto it and i'll be honest here that
13:21 this is not just a one-click solution
13:23 you will need to do some reading and
13:25 setup for yourself but fortunately there
13:27 is some excellent step-by-step
13:28 walkthroughs on setting up a mister
13:30 yourself and i will leave a link to that
13:32 in the description below but essentially
13:34 you'll need to format an sd card install
13:37 the mister tool onto it then insert that
13:39 into your de10 and power it on and then
13:42 if you're connected to the internet an
13:44 updater will run that will pull down all
13:46 the cores and install them now this is a
13:48 good thing to run the updater
13:50 periodically because as mentioned many
13:52 members of the community continue to
13:54 tweak and update cores now of course
13:56 you'll need to provide your own roms and
13:58 data files for all the calls that you
14:00 want to use but getting files onto the
14:02 mister is pretty easy there's many ways
14:04 to do it you can simply put the sd card
14:07 back into your pc and copy them directly
14:09 or you can even do things like ftp them
14:12 across to name just two examples but i
14:14 want to stress again that there is a
14:16 learning curve here and that's pretty
14:18 much in line with the entire mr project
14:20 the good news is there is plenty of
14:22 documentation available youtube setup
14:25 videos and community forums to help you
14:27 on your journey so in conclusion with a
14:30 combination of arcade consoles and
14:32 computers all in one package like this
14:34 you can quickly start to see why the mr
14:36 project is gaining in popularity not
14:39 only that with the right add-ons you can
14:40 take the mister with you pretty much
14:42 anywhere not only can you connect it up
14:44 to modern displays and even provide some
14:46 great filtering options that can
14:48 replicate a crt display thanks to
14:50 hardware add-ons you can also connect
14:52 via rgb or scart or even an arcade
14:54 cabinet via the jammer edge this
14:56 versatility complemented with an
14:59 extremely active community that's
15:00 updating and releasing cores all the
15:02 time makes the mister a very nice piece
15:05 of kit to own and while i don't think
15:07 the mr will replace software emulation
15:10 anytime soon i do strongly believe that
15:12 the two can co-exist and i'm very happy
15:15 that i finally took the plunge
15:17 now if you are thinking about getting
15:19 into the mister be aware that it doesn't
15:21 come cheap you're going to be looking at
15:23 anywhere between 350
15:25 to about five or six hundred dollars
15:27 depending on the add-ons that you want
15:29 to get the de10 nano is not available
15:32 right now it's pretty much sold out
15:34 everywhere and unfortunately due to
15:36 resellers jacking up the price it's very
15:38 hard to find one at retail price which
15:40 is usually i think around between 150 to
15:43 200 dollars and i haven't seen anything
15:46 less than about 350 dollars for a de10
15:49 nano and that is before you consider the
15:51 add-ons that you are wanting to add to
15:53 it for example the jamex add-on that i
15:56 showed you in this episode cost 222
15:59 dollars by itself so as you can imagine
16:02 these things really start to add up and
16:04 before you know it you can really be in
16:06 about 700 dollars into the mr project
16:10 before your entire setup is complete now
16:13 that is certainly an investment so i
16:15 want to be very clear that if you are
16:17 wanting to get into this it's not going
16:20 to be something where you just pay the
16:21 cost of a raspberry pi and set it all up
16:24 it's definitely an investment and it's
16:26 definitely a commitment but we are going
16:28 to leave it here for this episode thank
16:29 you so much for watching if you liked it
16:31 don't forget to put a like on it and
16:33 i'll catch you guys in the next video
16:35 bye for now
16:36 [Music]