MiSTer FPGA Forum

Armakuni

The QMtech board Direct Video needing a HDMI to VGA with a +5v power is not an issue there are plenty available and cheap from the likes of Ali and some have better DACs than the AG2600 The N64 issue has been now solved and this affected both Taki and QMtech boards, even some DE10 setups had issues with Conker The Taki IO board analogue audio noise...

Armakuni

Is it known if the QMTech IO board features a RTC clock? Or has it to be added separately. Yes it does, there is a place for a battery on the bottom of the board My QMtech USB/IO board and case arrived a week ago and for less than $30 its a bargain and works as it should Due to the QMtech board having a USB header there is no bridges either, its a...

Armakuni

vanfanel wrote: ↑Fri Sep 06, 2024 9:11 am
Are you guys implying that both Taki and QMTech use pulled (re-used) chips?
Are you sure about that?
(This is out of curiosity, as I already have many MiSTer setups around for different use cases)

There is a odd belief that due to the boards being cheaper than the DE10, they have to be using salvaged chips. There is no evidence for this

Armakuni

I can't speak about Taki, but my concern about QMtech (and chip reuse) is that demand will always outstrip supply, and the only sane response to that is to...wait for it...raise prices. I just fail to see how it's supposed to help the market. QMtech do their own thing but on a much smaller scale and that is fine. They have already sold over 500 bo...

Armakuni

Both this and the QMtech boards are great for the project I really don't understand the issue about the chip source, we are talking over a decade old chip that is very cheap to produce and with the state of Intel every $ counts even when Altera has been spun off, we have seen even a rumours of a AMD buyout of Altera I have been testing one of QMtec...

Armakuni

To be fair to QMTech many HDMI > VGA adapters aren’t exactly what I would call consistent. Though I totally agree, I think the prudent thing to do is to wait on the Taki clones. Do we know if the Taki DE10-nano clones are using reclaimed chips? No he is buying direct from Altera and with the numbers he is talking it would be hard to do via reclama...

Armakuni

Wow, so there is variation from one to the next even within the same model. That shows there has to be some pretty bad QC going on there. Most of the adapters in that list aren't able to be externally powered which is a requirement for them to work with this specific clone board because they didn't accurately clone how the HDMI pins were hooked up...

Armakuni

Funnily enough then, my Icy Box adapter doesn't have an external power source and works fine. I already sent Lu a message about this. It is POSSIBLE that my board is different than Lu's because I have the board with the integrated SDRAM and he has the classic one. So I could have a revised board. This all goes to show that there are differences an...

Armakuni

Most of the adapters in that list aren't able to be externally powered which is a requirement for them to work with this specific clone board because they didn't accurately clone how the HDMI pins were hooked up, unfortunately. In some ways its good QMtech didnt copy the HDMI 1:1 especially with the CEC issues and non electrically isolated HDMI tb...

Armakuni

Really there is no rule to how loud the digifix should be as its just a hack anyway. The amount of gain was done by Sorg

Armakuni

rhester72 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 30, 2024 1:14 pm
My statement was more around loudness - in the real world, as I remember it, the 6581's 'digital' output was significantly louder than the 8580 with digifix, where the core seems to behave in the opposite manner.

The 8580 with Digifix sounds fine to me but we have the option of 6581 anyway

Armakuni

The 8580 is better in so far as stability and filter predictability, which means it's theoretically superior. But in practice it doesn't sound quite as potentially fat and saturated as a good 6581 with an optimal filter. Unfortunately the filters (and as important the two related caps at position C10+C11) are incredibly fickle and vary greatly bet...

Armakuni

I don't remember that the samples in Impossible Mission were very quiet back in the days, or in Space Taxi. My C64 was from '82. So is there something special about the samples in Myth? And what is the deal with this Digifix? Your C64 from 1982 would have had a 6581 SID The 8580 SID which was used the C64c was a fixed version of the 6581 but the f...

Armakuni

The USB/IO/RTC AIO board for these QMtech boards will be released in a few weeks and for less than $30

Armakuni

Myth is from 1989. I would imagine that they did the SID samples with the newer 8580 in mind. No the samples are 6581 based, i cant think of any games with 8580 samples from back in the day. Your options were put up with very very quiet samples or perform the Digifix with a resistor in the SID socket On the MiSTer core use either 6581 SID or the 8...

Armakuni

I struggle to see how a DE10 is not good for the project and why it's deemed too good to be true ? What are you on about mate? Where did I say "DE10 is not good for the project"? As for "why it's deemed too good to be true ?" ok, English is my 2nd language, but is it really so hard to suss out the meaning from my 2-sentence lon...

Armakuni

This DE10 clone is a spinoff from a new business venture by Taki, He is planning to make products using the same Cyclone V as the DE10 and with a good supply setup direct from Altera it made sense to make a clone board If it's so easy, why has nobody done it yet? And it's not like we had shortage of various add ons, multisystems, etc. Additionally...

Armakuni

Why does it sound too good to be true ? If it's so easy, why has nobody done it yet? And it's not like we had shortage of various add ons, multisystems, etc. The DE10 was a similar price up to early 2021 and he is dealing direct with Altera for supply. The quantities he would need to get the best price from Altera should mean a good supply too The...

Armakuni

Here's something for the readers: https://www.readonlymemo.com/cheap-mister-fpga-clone-taki-udon-details-interview-release-plans/ It's one of these "sounds too good to be true" things, but if he can pull it off - and have a steady supply, not just 500 units or something - it'd be simply amazing. Why does it sound too good to be true ? Th...

Armakuni

Even without a CRT the experience via MiSTer as a end user is far better. I have tried software emus in comparison recently and some of the multi system setups are horrendous to use.

The HDMI scaler is a great feature and low latency. MiSTer was built around HDMI from what i have seen too

In the end it doesn't really matter the choice is yours

Armakuni

Unfortunately the guys behind CoinOp Collection are the same from MARS project. They won’t release any other core to MiSTer so they can try to leverage sales to their product (which doesn’t exist yet by the way). Yes that is well known but i cant see how they make closed cores for Pocket using OpenFPGA, open source frameworks and modules. Now they...

Armakuni

FPGA64 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 2:04 pm
Armakuni wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 11:18 am
FPGA64 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 08, 2024 5:50 pm
if no source code release it would be as if it never existed

They are using OpenFPGA though so can they keep the source code closed ?

Open FPGA means nothing, They can do whatever they want

They are also using Jotegos framework and other open source modules. I dont think its that clean cut tbh

Armakuni

Well this core has been released for the Analogue Pocket but according to Twitter it's a "Pocket exclusive" :cry: Is there any possibility this can be ported over to the MiSTer? I don't want an Analogue Pocket and this is literally the final core I want for my collection! if no source code release it would be as if it never existed They ...

Armakuni

I ditched all my original hardware and software a few years ago when the prices started to go silly, most of which i picked up in the previous decade for peanuts so was a nice little earner. MiSTer does all i need and good enough to not make me feel like i am missing out by not having the real hardware, In some ways i find it makes revisiting these...

Armakuni

bazza_12 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2024 7:18 am
lovely looking crt.. but such a shame phillips didn't put a scart connection on it..

Yeah always loved the look too but Philips had a nasty habit of locking their CRTs to PAL only even as late as 1998 on their Blackline series, ludicrous

Armakuni

Has anyone had an issue trying to run 7th Guest ?

It starts to run but always stops with a critical error has occurred

Armakuni

mong00se wrote: ↑Fri Mar 22, 2024 11:54 pm
I have several 8580 and they all sound different. When you play Mister demo vs 8580 on a real SID its totally different. To my ears. Maybe I am out of tune? Roughly the same is not the same but i get you.

For 8580 SID I recommend the recent test build of the core as the digifix was causing issues and it's switchable on the test build

Armakuni

The new Main core update is brilliant, some piece of work by Sergey

Armakuni

I finally managed to complete a route in Outrun arcade, only took nearly 40 years...

This was done on Cannonball on the PC though

Armakuni

I have been impressed with the C64 core output using RGB scart via the Ironclad ITX. Its the cleanest analogue image ive seen The 8580 SID is basically spot on in the core BUT i recommend grabbing the test build with the switchable digifix as the auto system in the main core causes extra noise with 8580 design samples and music that contain sample...

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