Groovy_MiSTer Core

[thorr]

I am not very familiar with Mednafen so I looked it up. I think nearly all the cores it emulates are already on the MiSTer. I am curious why we would ever use Mednafen with this when we already have the cores available. It's not meant to be negative, but just a genuine question. Is there something Mednafen gives us that the MiSTer cores don't?

Regarding Retroarch, would using run ahead be of any use with a fast enough PC when used with Groovy_MiSTer?

Finally, I would love to see the SuperModel 3 emulator supported, please.

[psakhis]

I know Mednafen well and for me it's easier to test core with it, that's the reason.

On the other hand, Retroarch it's very general and can be used for dosbox or x68000 but i don't recommend use run ahead so is to go against the lag of the original system itself.

[akeley]

I mainly use Retroarch via crtemudriver because it allows me to pause games and take photos. But yeah, you can also use other cores not well represented on MiSTer, or use savestates, etc. It just opens up a wealth of awesome options.

[rezb1t]

Just wanted to post to say this is ingenious! Incredible work, this will get me to play more software emulators

[blarpie]

Great work, for those who want to try unsupported emulators i remembered this core for retroarch

https://forums.libretro.com/t/official- ... core/40464

Pretty much captures a window and pipes it to retroarch, this is obviously not a good long term solution and a pain to run on an arcade machine without heavy scripting to automate it to the maximum, plus guessing it will add some more lag but if anyone wants to try it with sega model 2 emulator etc that would work.

[SwedishGojira]

Are there any plans to also route audio and controllers trough this core? If so that would be the ultimate boost for MiSTer.

[alexxnr]

Great work, for those who want to try unsupported emulators i remembered this core for retroarch https://forums.libretro.com/t/official- ... core/40464

Pretty much captures a window and pipes it to retroarch, this is obviously not a good long term solution and a pain to run on an arcade machine without heavy scripting to automate it to the maximum, plus guessing it will add some more lag but if anyone wants to try it with sega model 2 emulator etc that would work.

Hello, if you allow me to give my opinion.
The retroarch menu is not ready, the development has been focused on mednafen and groovymame.
In fact retroarch is a POC.
But if they finally add support for inputs from Mister and retroarch menu is adapted, it won't be as heavy as you say and most probably you can move from retroarch menus from Mister as you do now with groovy mame (without inputs for now).
It all depends if the developers want to do it and if the core has enough interest.
I didn't understand about the lag, what exactly do you mean?

[Calamity]

Are there any plans to also route audio and controllers trough this core? If so that would be the ultimate boost for MiSTer.

Audio, probably yes.

The controllers are a problem though. Having the controllers polled on the MiSTer, then sent back to the PC, might add latency, defeating the purpose of the whole thing. We still don't know, so it might turn out to be good enough. But the real problem is handling that input data once in the PC, so the emulators can make use of it. That's a sewer wouldn't like to dive through.

[Jeruro]

It would be nice to run GroovyMame on a Raspberry Pi next to Mister.

[aberu]

I am not very familiar with Mednafen so I looked it up. I think nearly all the cores it emulates are already on the MiSTer. I am curious why we would ever use Mednafen with this when we already have the cores available. It's not meant to be negative, but just a genuine question. Is there something Mednafen gives us that the MiSTer cores don't?

Regarding Retroarch, would using run ahead be of any use with a fast enough PC when used with Groovy_MiSTer?

Finally, I would love to see the SuperModel 3 emulator supported, please.

There is no PC-FX, or Virtual Boy core currently on MiSTer. Also there are no savestates for the apple II, PC Engine/tgfx16, Mega Drive, Master system, Game Gear, Sega Saturn, or SNES cores on MiSTer.

[Calamity]

It would be nice to run GroovyMame on a Raspberry Pi next to Mister.

If you like small things, get a mini pc. Raspberry Pi won't cut it.

[eerie]

First of all, thanks a lot psakhis for creating this core. It's great that you can use the same computer for modern games on the LED tv and send the GroovyMame data to the MisterFpga with the CRT. I have my old video card just in case but since buying the new graphic card I haven't played anything from MAME on the CRT ( I remember using GroovyArcade years ago so this was a nice surprise to see Calamity involved with this).

Yesterday I was testing for 3 hours and had no problems at all. I was using the router not directly but it worked great. For the audio I connected the 3,5 jack from the amplifier to the 3,5 audio cable of the SCART adapter so that wasn´t a problem ( I don´t know if there should be any sync problem between audio and video but it sounded good and without lag)

Mortal kombat worked great with it's refresh rate, Killer Instinct also looked great. There´s also all those games that probably will take some time to see a core like Guardians of the Hood or the Gaelco ones.

I was thinking the same about the inputs, maybe it´s not worth it if it adds some latency and there's always some way to split the inputs between PC and Mister.

Really nice to see the potential of the FPGA outside of recreating cores. Maybe a way to send from VLC data from LaserDisc rips and VHS or some other SD content. I'm waiting for the day that we can find a few synth cores under the Utility folder. A Yamaha DX7 with the userPort for MIDI input or something like that

I think this core will be useful to relieve some stress from core developers as people can play their favourite games while there's no FPGA core. And It's great to see FPGA and Softare emulation coexist in new ways

Thanks again.

[dmckean]

It would be nice to run GroovyMame on a Raspberry Pi next to Mister.

If you like small things, get a mini pc. Raspberry Pi won't cut it.

I wonder about this though. The Raspberry PI 5 single core performance appears to be roughly double the Intel Core Duo 2 E8400 setup I've been running Groovymame on for the last decade.

[thorr]

It would be pointless using a Pi to do this.
A Pi can already do what this core is doing, natively, without having to go through a network. You can even use original resolutions, and refresh rates, at 15hz, connected to a CRT.

So can a PC or miniPC. I think the idea is that the MiSTer solution is lower latency than a local video card with all its software requirements like a driver and SDL in the chain, if I understand it correctly. It's still hard for me to believe, but that is what I understand to be the case here.

[akeley]

It would be pointless using a Pi to do this.
A Pi can already do what this core is doing, natively, without having to go through a network. You can even use original resolutions, and refresh rates, at 15hz, connected to a CRT.

This really isn't so simple, which is why I mentioned it earlier. I spent a couple of years wrestling with Pi2SCART on RPi 3 and while the results are often great it's not always perfect. I know there are similar hats for RPi4, but I'm pretty sure they use the same modelines (and so have similar problems) and am not aware of any for RPi 5.

The bottom line is it can be a good solution but PC really is better (though also not 100% perfect, because of steep learning curve and the fact Retroarch cores aren't all 1:1). This is why MiSTer is comparatively the best of the lot, especially now we have access to GM and RA via this ingeniuous core.

[aberu]

It would be pointless using a Pi to do this.
A Pi can already do what this core is doing, natively, without having to go through a network. You can even use original resolutions, and refresh rates, at 15hz, connected to a CRT.

So can a PC or miniPC. I think the idea is that the MiSTer solution is lower latency than a local video card with all its software requirements like a driver and SDL in the chain, if I understand it correctly. It's still hard for me to believe, but that is what I understand to be the case here.

The benefit I see from it is moreso that you can avoid needing to have a whole PC + legacy video card with analog vga output in the mix.

The latency is also an added benefit though.

[akeley]

Worked perfectly.

Here's ZX Spectrum via Retroarch:

ZX-adastr-PC-240-resize.jpg (341.46 KiB) Viewed 3053 times

Here's a real ZX Spectrum

ZX-adastr-zx-2-resize.jpg (340.95 KiB) Viewed 3052 times

Here's ZX Spectrum via MiSTer

ZX-adastr-mister-resize.jpg (354.19 KiB) Viewed 3052 times

This is just one example. There are other emus which are not displaying 1:1 via Retroarch, at least not without some heavy individual modeline tinkering.

By your own admission the lag plays part in MAME, not to mention the size of its library vs PC MAME.

This is why most of similar discussions online are meaningless. Anybody who likes something will insist it is "perfect". Unfortunately perfect means "flawless". None of the currently available solutions for a CRT box is 100% perfect but, after 7 years of non stop in-depth testing most of them, I can risk saying that the hierarchy is: MiSTer - crtemudriver PC - RPi - modded Wii.

And MiSTer + Groovy_MiSTer core is as good as it gets atm.

[thorr]

The benefit I see from it is moreso that you can avoid needing to have a whole PC + legacy video card with analog vga output in the mix.

The latency is also an added benefit though.

Yes, I totally agree. You just need a decent PC in the area with any video card you want in it that you can run USB and sound from. I already have one in my "retro room" that I am using for retro PC gaming. Groovy_MiSTer can totally eliminate my Batocera dedicated PC that I just got going and recently bought multiple video cards for trying to get it to work and finally did. Like the N64 emulator, it is bitter sweet. I had recently gotten an N64 before the emulator was announced. I am not complaining though. I can resell the stuff if I want to. I am happy to have less clutter!

[akeley]

The benefit I see from it is moreso that you can avoid needing to have a whole PC + legacy video card with analog vga output in the mix.

The latency is also an added benefit though.

This is correct, plus you also have to add some converter such as UMSA into the chain (_40E), but more importantly setting 15kHz on Windows is not for the faint of heart (especially if you want to use Retroarch or external emus). It's definitely worth it, but this new core seems to get rid of extra hardware and simplify the operations to a huge degree ,which is a massive boon.

[Xbytez]

I have pruned some posts from this thread to keep this on topic, thanks.

[rcade]

This is really really neat. I had the idea years back to use some kind of USB device for this, but never did anything with it. This works great!

[shocknighkun]

Hi, I just got a Mister of my own a few weeks ago and I'm still learning on how to use things with it. I'm going to try this new core out when I get home and wanted to ask if Mupen64 would work on this through Retroarch and if you could play Saturn games through Mednafen on this? Thanks. This is an awesome new development. I love playing games on my CRT.

[deepthaw]

Set this up tonight using an old NUC running Debian and it worked fantastically. I noticed occasional color/sync issues in the brief time I was able to test it. I have a very finicky KV35V75 Trinitron using svideo which MikeS has had to tweak settings to get working better before in his yc cores. Any idea where I could start to try and tweak it myself?

[psakhis]

Set this up tonight using an old NUC running Debian and it worked fantastically. I noticed occasional color/sync issues in the brief time I was able to test it. I have a very finicky KV35V75 Trinitron using svideo which MikeS has had to tweak settings to get working better before in his yc cores. Any idea where I could start to try and tweak it myself?

Interesting, i don't have svideo here. Can you give me an example of yc core that needs changes to work?

[psakhis]

Hi, I just got a Mister of my own a few weeks ago and I'm still learning on how to use things with it. I'm going to try this new core out when I get home and wanted to ask if Mupen64 would work on this through Retroarch and if you could play Saturn games through Mednafen on this? Thanks. This is an awesome new development. I love playing games on my CRT.

Yeah, for Saturn games i recommend you Mednafen. Mupen64 probably will not work if only uses hardware renderer.

[PikWik]

Set this up tonight using an old NUC running Debian and it worked fantastically. I noticed occasional color/sync issues in the brief time I was able to test it. I have a very finicky KV35V75 Trinitron using svideo which MikeS has had to tweak settings to get working better before in his yc cores. Any idea where I could start to try and tweak it myself?

Interesting, i don't have svideo here. Can you give me an example of yc core that needs changes to work?

maybe this post and github links will help the most. its a pretty exhaustive list on MikeS' YC cores - viewtopic.php?t=5475

https://github.com/MikeS11/MiSTerFPGA_YC_Encoder

https://github.com/MikeS11/YC_Builds-MiSTer

https://github.com/MikeS11/MiSTerCRT

[bankshot]

Being an old timer that built his own 486 PC clone back in the day from a box of parts and used 10Mbps 10Base2 Ethernet on coax cable, I am absolutely flabbergasted that a copper Ethernet connection to a separate physical device can result in less latency than a video card directly plugged into a system board bus like PCI. What an amazing project, congrats guys and fantastic job and thank you for the hard work!!

[mr-box]

what type of min PC you guys you recommend to able to run most of the stuff you can run on mame?

[akeley]

what type of min PC you guys you recommend to able to run most of the stuff you can run on mame?

http://wavebeam.blogspot.com/2016/02/th ... plays.html

This guide is pretty old (2016) but can give you a good overall idea. He's using 3.7GHz i3-4170, and as he says " I've ran everything from 3d fighters to CAVE shmups with the i3, and haven't had a single hiccup so far."

Obviously there are some more demanding games, but this should cover the majority of old school MAME, and in 2023 you should be able to get a much more powerful CPU for litle money anyway (my machine has some old i5 with 8GB RAM).

[mr-box]

thanks that helps alot